The Epic of Sandrock
by Experimental
Summary: [AU] Sing, O Muse, of arms and of a man. Sing of the youth, tossed about by the tides of a tenuous peace, and of the machine whose name he bore as his own, that shining gundam, Sandrock.
1. Knights of Cydonia part A

A/n, 3 July 2007: This first chapter has been revised somewhat since it was posted some years ago. The story is alternate universe—the exact setting I will leave up to the reader to guess at in these early chapters—though I've kept mobile suit technology and the basic political arrangement. (Some may notice cameo appearances by characters from other Gundam franchises, but this is not a crossover; just needed more named extras.) It was written to be a sort of epic, and originally there were intended to be twelve episodes each divided into two parts. I make no promises on if/when further ones will be completed, but present at very least the finished first half of the first episode, beginning now.

* * *

—= 1 =—

_Knights of Cydonia_

Sing, O Muse, of arms and of a man.

Sing of the youth, tossed about by the tides of a tenuous peace, who found his harbor upon the brutal rocks of war.

Sing, too, of the machine whose name he bore—a goliath of gundanium and steel, sixteen and a half metres tall and stronger than any mobile suit made, whose brilliant countenance under the fierce Arabian sun struck fear into the hearts of the most hardened of OZ Specials.

They called this suit, this shining gundam, and the youth who piloted it, Sandrock.

But to the mercenaries who had found the lad, without parents and without a home, who accepted him into their family and raised him on machines and honor, and on freedom, that second creed of man, he was simply Quatre.

The year was After Colonization 196. Four years had passed since the overthrow of the Global Alliance.

For four years had the young visionaries of OZ, the esteemed Order of the Zodiac, and their leader Treize Khushrenada struggled to rid the world of the last hold-outs of the Alliance, whose stagnant empire of greed and corruption had already once nearly choked the planet of its spirit, and all but snuffed out the dreams of its Pioneers.

Yet in this four-year struggle, it soon came to be, as these things inevitably do, that the Order became in the minds of the common people more and more a worse substitution for the oppressive reign of the Alliance, as slowly those nations who had aided the Specials in their fight for independence saw their briefly-won freedoms disappearing once again beneath the Order's ever-expanding fold. And Treize's once grand promise to restore the dreams of the Pioneers for humanity, those fragile dreams of independence and prosperity that fluttered like candle flames in the wind, looked less and less likely to ever become a reality, except for the privileged few.

In light of this, could anyone have blamed Captain Rashid and his Maguanacs, those heroes of the last war, for standing up, suit to suit, against these new imperialists they had once considered their allies? It was for freedom that they fought on the meteorite-ravaged plains of the Arabian continent, for whose aquifers and strategic passage to the sea the Order was jealous.

And it was for those who could not fight, those who hadn't the power to stand against the injustices that would be committed against them, that young Quatre, a boy of sixteen at the time but already possessing of skills far beyond those of any of Rashid's men, donned Sandrock's name as his own and steered the gundam into battle. For until this boy came to the Maguanacs, through all those long years had the gundam stood waiting beneath the desert sands, there had been no man or woman capable of piloting that mobile suit, for it far surpassed any other mobile suit in speed and strength, and sensitivity. Like a wild steed that could not be tamed, it seemed there was no cap to its power.

But to all who witnessed their first true battle together, the youth and the suit, it seemed in retrospect as though the gundam had simply been waiting for this boy to awaken it. To the Maguanacs, the gundam's destiny had already been writ, and Sandrock had finally chosen its pilot.

—= o =—

And now Khushrenada's dogs were once again on the move, crawling northeast through the Hiddekel along the southernmost borders of the Arabian States, where the air in Wadi Saffra was heavy and orange with dust.

A storm had sprung up in the east, blowing hot winds down from the high desert, whence Quatre and his party had entered the valley early the day before. All night the storm gathered strength as it traversed the craterlands that separated the equatorial country from the heart of Arabia. By early morning it hit them at their position, driving hard into the pass as they took breakfast, where it was captured and focused down into the canyons by the surrounding ridges of rock.

At times such as these the pureness of the desert was awe-inspiring. Sand filled everything before them and behind. Even the rocky benches and wind-hewn hoodoos that surrounded the pass like sentinels were made nearly invisible by the swirling grit. The landscape was barren for now, without a single trace of human interference. And when everything was finished and the troops departed, in a day the desert would cover up any trace of a battle and be barren once again. It was constant that way.

It put Quatre, though secure in his cockpit, in his place to know that for all mankind's ingenuity there were still forces greater at work.

The dusty wind was a blessing in disguise as it blew about the mobile suits, burying them half-way up in dunes and fading the heavy brown cloaks, which concealed their powered-down machines from infrared, to the saffron color of the desert sands. It was only a mild storm compared to those that were known to encompass much of the southern hemisphere each spring, and it would pass in less than an hour; but while it lasted it was hell for any creature unfortunate to be trapped out in it. Even their mobile suits would complain of this later, with creaky joints and pockmarked chasis.

For now the Maguanacs were upwind of their enemy, but the wind and sand blowing from their backs would leave them the advantage in the end. That knowledge was enough to make each one itch nervously for an early start to activities, while the weather was still working with them. However, each and every one was well aware, their people would not have survived free so long if they had not been masters of utilizing even the most unfavorable of conditions. This was in their blood.

"Quatre," came the voice of Rashid over the radio, a heavy reminder in the recycled air of his cockpit.

"Right." Ten minutes precisely had passed. Quatre took a deep breath, shaking himself of his anxiety. "Tafas, status report. Do you have visual?"

"That's a negative," came the static filled reply. "This damn wind. . . . Radar picking them up fine and clear, passing four-point-three-five clicks north of position, but everything's a blur from here. Switching to infrared." A brief pause. "We're cutting it close. Are you sure there's an end to this storm?"

"The weather report from HQ is saying blue skies already. But we want it to last just a little longer." Quatre flicked another switch. "Ahmad, please tell me you see _something_."

"I've got visual," he heard the man say. Stationed ahead of them at an outcropping of hoodoos that in this dust were all but indistinguishable from mobile suits, Ahmad would with any luck go unnoticed as the enemy passed by under his nose. A picture transmission from his position followed seconds later. The olive green and brown shapes moving across the picture were still difficult to make out. "They're heading northeast straight into the pass—right on target. Probably hoping higher ground will take them out of this wind. Five kilometers and closing to your position. Ranks are tight."

"Can you make out their numbers?"

"Yes, sir. I'm picking up thirty or forty of them this time, easily."

Quatre chewed his lower lip in thought. That made two or three enemy suits for each of them. They had faced worse odds, but with this kind of sight. . . . "You're right. They must feel confident. Are there any other vehicles, any transports?" he asked, holding his breath for the possibility this battle could be diverted. He doubted the Order's suits would be escorting anyone by land, let alone in this rough terrain and weather, but knew not to put it past them. They had made stranger decisions.

"That's a negative. Scanners showing relatively uniform mass. It's all lions and goats."

It was typical skirmish fare, a group of two or three Leo squadrons accompanied by five or six individual Tragos armed with beam rifles, not nearly enough for one of OZ's infamous peace-keeping missions; but either way they could do plenty of damage unchecked, and he could guess where they were headed.

Cassini had fallen to the Order over a year ago, and now it supported their largest base of operations east of the meridian. If the caravan were heading toward safe harbor there, prudence would have dictated they take the northerly route, cutting north and east past the southern borders of Moab where the land was more level and the passage easier. No commander in his right mind would risk the tight, winding passages of the Hiddekel, unless it was no ordinary caravan he was moving. Unless he thought he had something to hide.

The next town over the pass was Medina, nestled next to the high cliffs of the plateau, the old tunnels under which served as the Maguanacs' headquarters. Thus far Sharif Sadaul and his people had been most discrete, but the possibility of the mercenaries' discovery had long been the Sword of Damocles hanging over the town. Perhaps this battalion was an indication they had already been sniffed out. It was the town that would suffer the gravest consequences if that happened, they all knew, and the town that they were paid to protect.

It was for that reason that half their manpower remained back at headquarters, even though they were solidly outnumbered in the pass. If he and the Maguanacs could not protect those they were sworn to, if their base of operations were to be discovered, there would be no one to fight for Medina, or for Arabia.

"Three kilometers," said Ahmad.

"Hold your position," Quatre told him. "Tafas, start moving to cover OZ's rear."

"Sir!"

"Rashid, please give the order."

"Certainly, Quatre," came the instant reply. Then to the troops: "Ready yourselves, Maguanacs." Despite the wind, the old authority in his voice had a steadying effect on any Maguanac's nerves. Without a word they did as ordered.

To the untrained eye, it would appear little had changed on the dunes. But the sound would have been unmistakable, as firearms were drawn and aimed in the direction of the approaching enemy. Shoulder-mounted missile launchers, chain rifles, and beam weapons blended into the bland environment, concealed beneath the folds of the mobile suits' cloaks or wrapped in the thick, reinforced canvas-like material that suited the Maguanacs as camouflage and light armor both. Some of the suits had it wrapped around their crowns as head cloths, making them little more than obscure, dusty shapes in the thick wind, minimizing their reflective surfaces. Their commander's stood out, however, the stylized cobra on its crown pointing him out. They waited motionless with anticipation as he said to them, "On my signal."

In the distance, through the thick air which was just starting to calm as though on cue, the first lines of enemy mobile suits became visible. Olive shapes that neither clashed with nor matched their surroundings, they made no effort to conceal their movement. That would be OZ's downfall in the end, Quatre thought, as it was in every battle: they were too brazen, too self-assured, and too reliant on their fire power. The Maguanac lines went silent as the men waited tense for their commander's order, and for the enemy suits to come into firing range. Quatre rechecked his grip on Sandrock's controls, starting to feel the sweat trickling beneath his gloves.

Then Rashid gave the order:

"Fire!"

Instantly the air was bright with the golden bursts of the Maguanacs' beam weapons, and the deafening sound of the chain rifles ricocheted off the surrounding hills. Their suits rose to their feet from the dunes, front ranks raising blast shields, shaking off their layers of sand, while the wind blew their cloaks around them, creating miniature twisters that made their brown outlines difficult to distinguish in the monochrome landscape.

Ahead of them, several Leos shuddered as they were hit head-on by laser fire, some collapsing in the dust and others exploding where a head or arm had been blasted off. But their sacrifice gave the ones behind time to defend themselves and bring their own weapons to bear in retaliation. With the visibility so poor, however, many of their shots went wild. The Tragos kept back and fired between them, their wide feet planted solid in the sand and their aim much better, and their blasts tore up the ground with the power of their superior beam technology.

A few of the Maguanac soldiers fell in their first volley, one catching the beam full on in the cockpit hatch. In return they fired missiles from their center ranks, decreasing OZ's numbers a few at a time. Not fast enough, however, for their commander's comfort. They were still greatly outnumbered.

Then Sandrock rose from the dunes before the Leos' formation, and a sudden slash of his twin heat shotels caught those Leos unfortunate enough to be in the front ranks off their guard. One could even say the suits flinched visibly under the vibrant green eyes of the gundam—just before their torsos fell from disconnected legs face-first into the sand.

"Take out the Tragos!" Abdul told him as he retreated from another of their volleys, a curse on his breath, and jammed another missile into place ready for launch.

"That's the plan," Quatre answered under his breath. And opening up the thrusters, he pushed through to the center of their formation.

Bullets tore at his suit's deflective cloak, but even without it they would have done little damage against a gundam. He sliced through a Leo that stood in his way with his left shotel, cutting through the giant beam rifle of a Tragos with his right. The weapon exploded at the energy source, frying the suit's power system and incapacitating it as he turned to face another of the heavy suits that was bearing down on him.

A few hundred yards away, Auda rushed in and took out another. Holding its rifle away from him with one hand, his gundanium claw punched through the cockpit, instantly killing the pilot.

The battle waged on, ranks closing even as numbers dropped by twos and threes on OZ's side. Exchanging his rifle for a heat scimitar, Rashid charged, the heavy legs of his suit pumping overtime like a man trying to run through water. The Leos, unprepared for hand-to-hand combat, tried in vain to retreat from the commander and his men, while they continued to shower their enemy with bullets. Those who saw him coming reached for their beam sabres, but for some it was already too late. Rashid tore through them as effortlessly as would a bull elephant through their namesakes, his suit's helmet gleaming in the light of their explosions.

Meanwhile, Tafas's men had reached the enemy's flank from the south. In the excitement, no one took much notice when one of the pilots who had entered with him yelled a dumbstruck, "What the—" before his radio went abruptly dead.

At the northern end of the skirmish, Auda pushed through the Leo ranks with relative ease, crushing the heads of suits, their sensory centers, with his giant three-fingered claw and making them easy prey for the men who came behind him to finish off. Suddenly, something flashed out of the corner of his eye.

A warning light blinked on his display. He shielded the cockpit hatch with his gundanium hand just seconds before a well-aimed volley of bullets pelted his suit, striking the legs, knocking it off balance and off its feet into the sand. Auda was able to breathe a sigh of relief nonetheless, however, because at least he was still alive. He looked up at his attacker, knowing it could be no ordinary OZ pilot who had done such a thing, but what he did see made the breath momentarily catch in his throat.

Looming before him—looking down at him like a man might look down at an insect—stood a magnificent suit the likes of which he had only seen once before. Sleek white legs braced it firmly to the uncertain terrain; blue plates striped like warpaint covered its chest and massive shoulders; and a golden crest shone on its brow. As he stared down the double barrels of its almost ridiculously large guns, he knew precisely what he was looking at.

A gundam.

OZ has a gundam!

—That was his first thought. But as he watched, the suit turned away from him momentarily to dispose of a Leo that had one of Auda's comrades in its sights. Is he on our side then? he wondered, though he doubted it by the look in the machine's soulless eyes as they turned on him once again. The blue suit came toward him, hoisting one of its massive guns onto its back, and reached for Auda's suit's arm—its gundanium arm.

Auda knew instinctively the pilot of that thing wasn't simply trying to help him to its feet; he hadn't simply mistaken Auda for an enemy. Auda dug his heels into the sand, his wounded suit groaning in protest. It was no good. The gundam had to be thrice as strong. He saw its other arm bend, hoisting the heavy guns into a position to blast Auda's suit's arm off at point blank range. He did not think he would survive at this close range, let alone that the gundam's pilot would spare his life once the amputation was finished. He yelled.

The slam of metal bodies against one another threw him sideways against his harness. With relief, he realized he was free of the giant and still had his arm. He looked up at his display to see a new body bouting with the gundam and recognized the violet-gray back of one of their own suits. "Quatre!"

"Move out of here now, Auda!" Quatre yelled back between grunts. "If you can."

He punched the gundam once, putting some maneuvering room between them, and swung with his shotel.

It was a clean cut, and should have cut through the chest plates; but instead, to his shock, the blade bounced off with a piercing ring, chipping. The other suit fired on him, its chest opening up to reveal a mother lode of missiles. He braced himself, for even though he was confident the few rounds released would not fully penetrate Sandrock's armor, the impacts rocked him violently and threatened to knock Sandrock off its feet.

When the barrage stopped, Quatre expected the suit would engage him once again. But to his surprise, it just stood where it was, weapons aimed but otherwise lifeless, regarding him.

For a long moment, neither of them moved, and Quatre heard nothing but his own blood pumping in his ears. The Maguanacs had fallen silent; the battle around them had ceased minutes ago. With the air clearing fast, those suits' eyes that could had turned to watch the two gundams.

At last, under that scrutiny, the blue suit shut its chest plates. Still keeping its guns aimed at Quatre, it moved to the nearest fallen Leo, its lower torso ripped away, straddling it and grabbing it in one hand like a leopard grabs its kill.

Now that he had the chance to fully take in the sight of the blue suit, Quatre was astounded by its magnificence.

"What is it?" he breathed, although he already suspected the answer. "It's a gundam, isn't it Rashid?"

There was a moment's hesitation before the radio crackled to life again. "Yes, Quatre," his captain answered gravely, as though he did not want to believe it himself. "It's a gundam."

"Another gundam." Quatre heard his own voice fill with awe. "Incredible."

Before the others could caution him, he was opening a channel to the other suit, hailing: "Unknown mobile suit, please identify yourself."

Abdul sucked in a breath.

There was no response from the blue suit.

"I repeat, please identify yourself," Quatre tried again. Come on, tell me if you're an enemy or a friend. "You are a gundam, aren't you?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the grip on the massive guns was tightened with a new resolve. "I don't typically allow those who have seen me to live," said the pilot.

He could have issued no clearer warning, but Quatre felt his heart race with excitement. Through the light haze of static, his voice sounded young. The pilot was probably not much older than he was. However, there was a resignation in that voice beyond its years that, rather than frighten Quatre, made him all the more curious.

"Peace, stranger," he said with a new surge of confidence. He lowered Sandrock's hands with the heat shotels in their grip. He had no fear for his own life where the stranger was concerned, and though he knew it would be easy for the stranger to take out one of his comrades if he so desired, Quatre doubted the other pilot would be foolish enough not to realize his odds when he was surrounded. "No one's looking for another fight. We don't have to be enemies just yet."

Another long moment passed when the peace seemed to hang on the edge of a cliff.

Then, slowly, the blue suit lowered its guns, though its head never turned from the direction of Sandrock. It stood there seemingly in indecision. Quatre could guess what was going on inside the pilot's mind, his concern for his own safety conflicting with his need to collect the remains of the battle. But it would be theirs, the Maguanacs', for the taking—the pack of wolves triumphing over the lone jackal. Without another word, the blue suit turned and left, engines blazing as it sped toward the horizon with the Leo carcass under one arm.

Quatre let out a deep breath then, realizing he had tightened his grip on the controls unconsciously in his nervousness. His hands burned inside the gloves. Rashid approached him, and the steady _clunk-chink_ of his footsteps created a comforting vibration through the ground as he asked: "Are you all right, Quatre?"

"Yes," he said, but wasn't sure if he completely meant it. "Fine."

"We lost Said," Rashid informed him. "And Yusuf. His signal went off line just before that blue suit showed up."

Silently, Quatre cursed. Death was to be expected in battle, though naturally on the other side; but even that mantra did not quell one bit the profound sense of waste. They could have done better. Still, they had only lost two lives, and only one to OZ. With the Tragos alone the Order could have inflicted much worse.

However, it seemed that Quatre had just let one of his men's killers get away.

"Six of the suits are incapacitated."

"Then we'd better get to work before clean-up arrives," Quatre said, and braced himself for the task that lay ahead of them.

—= o =—

"Very impressive."

Who had ever seen such a near-perfect victory? Seventeen mercenaries against thirty-eight of OZ's finest and the former had lost only a handful of their suits while the Order's lay in ruins. Some of the fallen machines lifted their arms feebly. Three did not move at all, but only one of those pilots emerged from the cockpit. The pilots of the others wasted no time in climbing down to search what remained of the Leos and Tragos for salvageable parts and survivors, tiny beside the machines that trod slowly through a battlefield smoking in the now-still air.

Most amazing of all was that silver giant that alone among them stood nearly unmarred. It had to be a gundam. He harbored no more doubts about that. He had seen that type of workmanship once before and it never failed to leave him in awe. And this time, to witness not just one but two gundams—even now he could hardly believe his luck, though it was a pity the other had appeared and disappeared before he could collect much data.

But that would have to do for now. He had enough information on Sandrock at least, and that was what he had come for.

No one saw him there, the young man in a havelock cap with the sharp look of a hawk as he sat watching them through a telephoto lens from a rocky ledge just south of their position. They were occupied as they were with the mobile suits. Walker, as he called himself, lowered his camera and turned to the portable computer beside him. Pressing a key, he scanned the data delivered from his sensors set up around the area: the leading mobile suit's statistics, its speed and capabilities, heat discharge, pilot's reaction time—

All of it was incredible. There really was nothing like it—the machine or its pilot.

He turned back to the battlefield to see the hatch of the kneeling gundam open, and the pilot stepped out onto it to shout a word to the commander of the army.

Walker felt his heartbeat quicken with an excitement not unlike that which Carter must have felt opening Tutankhamen's tomb. To think no one had believed him. But there was the legend right before him, out in the open where any fool could spy him. Who would have associated the legendary Sandrock with the teenage boy that stood on its hatch now?

He could not have been more than sixteen years old. He was thin and long-limbed, though still retaining that softness of features typical of an adolescent, and held himself with confidence. His clothes matched the Arab soldiers', but his complexion was fair and his hair pale blond. He had an aristocratic face, and wide eyes that implied a purity incongruous with the destruction around him. He smiled to the men who approached him, even laughed a bit at something one in sunglasses said. By all appearances, he should have been a student in the city, some foundation bigwig's son avoiding this remote desert pass in favor of oasis resorts, anything but an insurgent mobile suit pilot fighting with such merciless cunning.

And yet, there was something about him that meshed with the other mercenaries and their situation. Something Walker could not explain but that attracted him intellectually to the gundam pilot—that made him want to know the boy better: his history, his talent, his beliefs and motives. His name.

Walker glanced at the picture of the pilot as it loaded onto his screen. He would have to memorize that face and be able to pick it out of a crowd if he was ever to find Sandrock's pilot again.

When he had everything he needed, Walker packed his equipment into the saddlebags of the motorbike that awaited him down the hill, slid into the seat and started the engine. He knew the positions of the troop's scouts, and his route skirted all of them. As he drove, his mind refused to sway from what he had witnessed and what he would say when he arrived back home. For all his answers he found himself with only more questions. That pilot was even younger than he was and yet able to handle the most sophisticated mobile suit known to man with such ease.

"Who are you really," he wondered aloud, "Sandrock?"

—= o =—

On the farthest edges of the battlefield, past Auda's incapacitated suit to the sight of his duel with the blue gundam, Quatre stood alone.

At first glance, one might have noticed that his costume was that of an Arab. A long tunic of light tawny cotton, monochromatically embroidered around the row of buttons descending from the collar to his breast bone, covered his shirt and the thighs of his trousers, belted close to his narrow waist. A laser pistol, not the old-fashioned kind that still fired lead bullets, sat in its holster off his hip. And over his loose trousers were brown leather boots. A pair of goggles, the leather strap worn with age, was pushed up to rest on his brow. Hair like flax which tended to a slight wave fell over the sides of the lenses and moved in the weak breeze that was all that was left of the storm of only minutes ago.

Unlike his attire, the young man's face recalled Western nobility, from his fair complexion and translucent skin dusted by faint freckles, to the gently bowed line of his mouth and his slightly upturned nose. The line of his brow and his deep aquamarine eyes were intent under the midday sun as he gazed off toward the nebulous horizon.

The blue gundam's shell casings sparkled like jewels where they had fallen in the sand, and Quatre bent to pick one up. He studied it absently, hefting and rolling it in his palm of which it more than spanned the width and feeling the residual heat of the battle in it. He would take it with him, he decided, as a souvenir of their encounter, though he doubted there was anything unique about these casings in particular. The prospect that there might be was not what attracted him anyway. His and the other gundam's exchange of blows had been so brief. The wind was light, but already the blue suit's tracks were becoming obscured on the rise. All the proof of the blue gundam's existence lay heavy in his hand, but what little proof it was. Who is he fighting for, that pilot? Quatre wondered as he stared into the distance, across the sea of sand into which the gundam had disappeared. Will we meet again? Are there others like him—allies perhaps?

Or enemies?

His thoughts were interrupted by one of his comrades' shouts. "I got a live one over here!" someone yelled, and Quatre turned to go toward the voice, slipping the shell into a fold in his belt.

He looked up at Sandrock as he passed, and at the charred pockmarks left by the blue suit's missiles. Although they were an eyesore, they sparked in him something akin to the pride of displaying a battle scar. The knowledge they would be hammered out in less than a week's time came with a strange pang of regret.

He passed a couple of men hooking tow lines between the remains of a Tragos and their suits, to where a group of three or four had gathered around a prone Leo whose stomach was caved in. Already the handful of survivors on OZ's side were being herded together where the Maguanacs could keep a better eye on them, but for whatever reason the one in the Leo was giving them some trouble.

Quatre climbed up onto the suit and joined Khalil at the cockpit hatch. And he looked down.

The dusty face of the young pilot looked back at him from inside, calm despite his situation and the pain he must have been in. He couldn't have been more than a year or two older than Quatre. "His legs are crushed under there, from what I can gather," Khalil murmured to him. "There's no way we can get him out. At least he doesn't seem to be in much pain, but . . ."

Quatre nodded, but he barely registered the words, already turning the possible actions over in his head. How many times had he seen men in this position before? And each time he chastised himself for his inability to feel the indifference toward them that he held for their suits. Vaguely, he wondered if it would be worse to ever reach that point, if it would mean losing a piece of his humanity.

He remembered his first time in battle, thinking he knew everything there was to know, treating the war like it was a game. It was only a few years ago, but he had been such a child then. Then he came across a survivor not unlike the one before him now, and saw Rashid drawing his pistol just as Abdul tugged him away—and heard the shot that had mercifully ended the pilot's life. He had run back to his suit, shaken and angry at everything. He had refused to speak to Rashid for days. He had not been able to understand how he could be expected to act like that himself, with no feeling. It took a while to understand feelings were only part of the problem.

Quatre knelt down beside the cockpit opening. Unstrapping a canteen of water, he handed it to the pilot, who refused. "It'll just go to waste," he started.

"You might as well drink," Quatre said. "You're still alive right now, aren't you?"

Not breaking with his gaze, the pilot raised it to his lips with slow, shaking fingers, spilling a little on his dusty uniform in his awkward position. The bright gold and hunter green darkened under each spot. "Thanks," he choked as he handed it back.

But Quatre refused to accept it. "You'll need every drop until your friends arrive. We'll put a blanket over the hatch, keep you out of the sun until then. Can you feel your legs at all?" The pilot nodded slowly. Quatre didn't seem to register his hesitation before doing so, but continued, "You understand we're doing you a favor, right? I'll only ask you one small thing in return. Nothing too sensitive. I just want to know where you were heading."

The pilot winced. He said something in a low voice.

"What?"

"I said, some favor," the pilot repeated, smiling sardonically with an inner resignation. "My radio's fried and it's the one time I forgot my pistol. They say heatstroke makes you go insane before you die."

Whether it was a stall or a hint, Quatre could not be sure. "I apologize."

"Why should you? After all, you're Sandrock, aren't you?" the pilot said as though the name explained any behavior of Quatre's. He added at Quatre's slight recoil, "It isn't hard to figure out. But if it makes you feel better, we all thought you'd look different. You know, big and ugly, one eye scratched out . . ."

"If that's so, what makes you think I'm him?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? Now, anyway." He coughed then, took another sip to wet his throat, then stared at the canteen as though he could not believe what he had just done.

Quatre glanced at the collapsed part of the cockpit. The pilot should survive until the clean-up crew arrived, he judged, but then what did he have to go back to? And what would he tell his superiors about the mysterious Sandrock? Would it even matter?

The pilot seemed to read his mind. "If they had known Sandrock was just a kid they might have thought we stood a chance."

Quatre met his eyes. There was something about the Leo pilot's response he didn't like. "What do you mean?"

But the pilot checked himself quickly. "Thanks for the drink—"

"Wait a second. At least tell me where you were headed. Are you saying your commanding officer didn't even plan on getting you there?"

Quatre stood as the truth sank in. He knew something about their formation had struck him as odd, but he had not been able to say what. "OZ had no intention of backing you up, did they? I suppose they were just going to leave you here to die."

The Leo pilot shrugged. "That's what you're going to do, isn't it?"

A hand on his shoulder made Quatre turn before he would have to reply. "Rashid wants a word," Khalil told him.

Excusing himself, Quatre climbed back down, making his way toward where their commander sat in his kneeling suit, issuing orders to the crews back home. His tall frame appeared stuffed into the cramped MS cockpit, the harness stretched tight across his broad chest and shoulders. He wore his hair in a flattop that looked perpetually overgrown, and thick muttonchops and a beard hid the line of his jaw, giving him along with the hard line of his deep-set eyes the honed, intimidating look of a storybook Beduin warrior. Everything about his visage spoke of confidence and discipline.

Knowing it would be useless to try to hide his frustrations from the commander, Quatre simply said, "You wanted to see me, sir."

Rashid nodded. "I just informed headquarters of our situation," he said. "They're sending some ground transports to meet us halfway."

There was something anxious in his tone just below the surface.

"Is something wrong?"

"Headquarters says an OZ convoy is heading for Medina. They aren't carrying any mobile suits, at least not into our sight, but I still don't like the looks of it. They've taken the southern route, right over the mountains." It was common knowledge that way, though the most direct route to Cassini, was geographically impractical. There were fewer towns in the high plateau in which a caravan might hope to resupply, but at the same time the Order must have deemed it safer to pass by Foundation territory than to take a chance in a small town in the less welcoming Arab States. "They must be relying on the hope the sharif won't be able to refuse them aid after such a journey. They'll arrive before we do."

"Damn it." Quatre's fists tightened at his side. "That must have been what that pilot meant."

"What pilot?"

"A survivor. He was trapped inside his suit. I spoke with him briefly."

Rashid's eyes narrowed. "Does he know who you are?"

"Yes," Quatre said.

A few years ago, his commander would have scolded him for associating with the enemy; now it was the least of his worries and only garnered a disapproving scowl.

"It doesn't matter, though. He seemed to think OZ wasn't coming back for survivors or the suits. He was so resigned. . . ." Even Quatre was already speaking of him as a dead man. "I don't like it. OZ always cleans up their messes. You must have noticed there was something odd about their formation. Something sloppy."

"These troops were just a decoy," Rashid said as Quatre's words sank in like the final piece of a puzzle.

"More like a suicide mission," Quatre said. "But that's all OZ needs to get information. They were smoking us out—they're on to us."

Rashid nodded somberly. "I was afraid something like this would happen sooner or later." He was silent for a moment, deep in thought. "However, there may still be something we can do to make this go away peacefully, if we're cautious. They don't have anything concrete on us yet. If anything, they'll try to catch us entering the fortress. Let's hope they still don't know about it. If we hurry, we may be able to reach home before they can set up sensors around the perimeter. Get Sandrock. I want you bringing up the rear."

He raised his suit to its feet as if to say it was the end of the discussion. But, remembering the shell casing in his pocket, Quatre knew there was more to be said. "Captain, about that other suit. . . . Have you ever heard of the existence of other gundams? I mean, Sandrock came from _somewhere_. The Maguanacs didn't create him. Could he be from the same place as that blue gundam?"

Rashid frowned in thought, and Quatre wondered if the encounter had seemed as unreal to him as well. "We'll talk about it when we have the luxury," he said. "For now let's just worry about making it home. And as quickly as possible."

He gave the orders for them to move out and to do it fast. The battle site and its survivors secure—the Maguanacs rarely took prisoners with them, and never to their base of operations—Quatre waited for the last of his men to fall into line before he followed suit, glancing without answers one last time at the spent shells glittering more faintly now on the hill.

Despite Rashid's urging and everyone's diligence, it was slow going. The damaged mobile suits slowed them down considerably as they were dragged between those in the best working condition. Those that had broken or missing legs leaned on others for support. The OZ suits they were forced to leave behind in their haste, in the end scavenging only the working beam rifles and what few parts their captain was assured were essential. The air was still through the rocks, as the gnarled shelves of rust-colored rock drew closer together, carved by the wind into viscous formations that echoed their footsteps and did nothing to shield them from the midday sun.

Then they reached the easternmost edge of the Hiddekel canyons on the higher side of the pass, where the land opened up before them in a wide valley flanked by distant brown hills, and where they could see the eighteen wide flatbed trucks waiting down below them. They loaded the suits onto the flatbeds, interspersing parts where they would fit, even piling them on top of the Maguanac suits, and covering them with heavy tarps secured them all tight. They made much better time after that, and arrived at their underground base's western entrance by mid-afternoon.

It was a gamble, raising the doors and trusting that OZ had not set up watches in the hills around the area. However, Rashid had been assured the convoy would be concentrating on Medina and its airstrip in the north. And, in the end, it was decided better to take the risk and start in on the many needed repairs than camp outside with incapacitated suits.

The great door swung upwards out of the ground with a low rumbling and the hiss of pistons, the ramp heading down into the earth seeming to appear out of the very rock and sand. As they entered the compound they could feel the cooler air wrapping around them through the trucks' open windows. Immediately the crews surrounded the trucks, unveiling their cargo and taking a quick inventory of the damage and new parts. Those suits that had sustained the brunt of the battle and those that still operated decently would have to wait their turn. With the OZ convoy looming above them, it was those suits only missing arms, or needing a few replacement parts, that had to be made ready for any scenario.

Quatre brought Sandrock around to his place in the vast hangar, and the noise around him was muffled for those few minutes in the cockpit. Mechanics scurried back and forth, shouting orders to one another. It was a nervous atmosphere that pervaded the hangar, echoing off the high ceiling, despite that they had prepared for a situation such as this—despite their utmost confidence that the underground base could remain hidden from any sensors or topical investigation.

Abdul and Auda joined him as he was coming down from the gundam, whistling at the damage the blue gundam had inflicted on Sandrock.

"Which reminds me, thanks again for saving my ass out there," Auda said, and before his friend could open his mouth added, "And no wise cracks, Abdul."

"No pun intended," the other said as he pulled off his gloves. Auda shot him an impatient look. "What? Why is it you always pick on me, but I can't return the favor?"

"Because I'm older."

"That's your excuse?" Abdul turned to Quatre, who smiled at their brother-like camaraderie. "I mean, what the hell was that thing anyway?" he said, obviously referring to the blue suit. "Was it really another gundam?"

Quatre nodded. "I'm sure of it."

Together they made their way to the hangar floor, dodging the mechanics and pilots and carts that rushed around beneath the suits. "I asked Rashid about it, but he hasn't said anything yet what with the convoy to worry about. But I did get the impression there was something . . ." He looked down briefly in thought. "Do you think he could be hiding something about Sandrock?"

"He's always been pretty forthcoming before," Auda said. "What would there be to hide?"

That was what Quatre had asked himself. Maybe a lot. But, then again, maybe nothing. "You think I'm just imagining things?"

Abdul shrugged. "Sandrock's been here longer than I can even remember. I'm sure Rashid is just as surprised as we are that there's another one out there. I mean, did you see that thing!" He mimed the blue suit hoisting its guns as he said so, elbows spaced wide to express the hugeness of it.

Auda winced. "Yeah, I saw it all right. Would you cut it out?"

"Anyway," Abdul said putting an arm around Quatre's shoulders in a brief, reassuring squeeze, "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about."

Quatre forced his shoulders to relax, though it still bothered him. There would be time to worry later. Right now, there were more pressing issues. "You're probably right," he acquiesced and concentrated on scanning the crowd for Rashid.

They found their captain on the floor issuing orders to the men to get the exits secured. When he saw Quatre and the others, he said, "You three, get yourselves into something less conspicuous and find Sharif Sadaul. Inform him of the situation and stay with him. When you can, contact me on a secure line. I want to know everything about that convoy, understand?"

"Sir!" said Auda and Abdul.

"You're not coming with us?" Quatre asked.

The tall man shook his head. "I have to see to it everything is secure here. Also, I have no doubt that if I were to join you my presence would not go unnoticed. I don't wish to cause the sharif any more trouble than I already have."

Reluctantly, Quatre nodded his understanding. If OZ had any target in mind on their visit, chances were it was Rashid. In the past, before the overthrow of the Alliance, he had never attempted to cover up his exploits as leader of a rebel military. If OZ found him now, regardless of a lack of any other evidence, they would know for certain mobile suits were close by—if they didn't already.

"You heard the boss," Abdul said, stretching his arms over his head while they walked toward the living quarters at a brisk pace. "The sooner we can make this whole mess go away the better. It's been a long day and I could have really used a hot meal and a cold drink right about now. I was even looking forward to it being on Ahmad, since he got to sit the whole thing out."

"What about me?" the man in question asked, appearing before them. He was shorter than the other two, and older, with a bushy mustache and curly hair. Abdul grinned behind his dark glassed and Auda flashed Ahmad a wise grin, accomplished all the better for his heavy-lidded eyes and lopsided smile. "Oh, nothing," Auda said. "Say, are you coming up with us?"

"You've got your orders, I've got mine. Speaking of which, you really did a number on your suit, Auda. After all the work it's gonna take just to get that thing operational again, _you're_ going to be owing _me_. Busted knee joint, ankle piston's wrecked, tension cables snapped all along the right leg— You get into a wrestling match with a Tragos or what?"

"More like a gundam," Auda said out of the corner of his mouth. Ahmad's eyes opened in surprise. "I'll explain later."

At the far end of the hangar were spartan living quarters. While the Maguanacs technically had homes above ground in the city, it remained a fact that these days, in order to keep pace with OZ, they spent most of their nights either in these subterranean commune-like spaces or in a tent in the desert. It was the Medina apartments rather that went sparsely furnished from lack of use and felt alien. No one said it so specifically, but it felt strange to eat and sleep apart from the group, even in those cases there was a family waiting at home. Their name could not have been more appropriate: despite blood, the Maguanac corps were a close-knit family all their own.

They changed out of their dusty clothing there. Quatre exchanged his local garb for an oxford shirt, his trousers for ironed slacks and boots for lace-up shoes. They took the elevator up to the basement of a grocer, and emerged from the back room with only the silent nod of the owner indicating anything in the town was out of the ordinary.

Nestled at the southern end of a wide valley between the feet of two massive, jagged-peaked craters, Medina proper remained a small, humble town. Someone generations past had named it with a vision of greatness, perhaps the same person who had excavated the massive caverns that served as the Maguanacs' hangar and headquarters. But though it might have fallen far short of the grand cities of Tempe or even northern Arabia, there was something to be said for the sense of closeness the town maintained. From the city streets to the date and wind farms beyond the town's borders, the community remained united around their greatest resource, the aquifer beneath the valley floor that had supplied them with fresh water for two centuries.

It was only a few minutes' walk to the city hall. Though tall and of a fairly lavish Turkish style, there remained something humble about the building that served as home and government offices both for the sharif. That did not seem to matter to OZ, however, whose jeeps and personnel were stationed all around the place. The sharif had never seen the need for guards before. Now there were several standing warily at the front entrance, watching the soldiers who stood about in the hunter green, dark red and gold uniforms of OZ.

It was an alien sight, and Quatre found it somewhat unnerving to see both sides with rifles slung across their chests and gripped tightly at the ready. The sharif's men instantly recognized Quatre and his companions waved them in. But as he passed, Quatre thought he could hear the OZ soldiers, clustered together, muttering under their breaths about the three of them.

As they approached his office, they could hear pieces of the conversation taking place between Sadaul and the officer in charge of the convoy. The open door seemed to be an invitation just for Quatre and his two comrades.

"Please understand our position," said the OZ officer within.

He was younger than Quatre had imagined, about the same age as their leader Treize, and not half as clean-cut with his windblown brown hair and bushy sideburns, and an expression on his long face that seemed imperturbable. How much did this man really know, Quatre wondered, and what kind of management were they dealing with? What kind of games would they play before this "visit" came to an end.

"Being forced by the storm to take the route through the highlands has put a strain on supplies we hadn't expected. In order to make it to Banadiya, we need to refuel—"

"I understood that part well enough," came the gentle but firm voice of Sharif Sadaul, "and I have no objections to helping you in that matter. Our law forbids us to withhold material assistance from anyone who asks it, given our location."

"Yes. That is why—"

"But anything further stretches even my hospitality thin. Here I must put my foot down."

The officer smiled at the interruption. "It could mean the safety of your citizens."

"Which is exactly what I have in mind by refusing. Unless I'm supposed to take that last comment as a threat, Colonel?"

Quatre rapped his knuckles on the open door. "Sharif?" he said. "You wanted to see me?"

The room's occupants looked up. Sharif Sadaul, a chubby man of about sixty with a thin, pointed mustache and dressed in the traditional garb of his forefathers, sat on one side of the table. Even under pressure, his cheery disposition held and masked his true shrewdness. Beside him sat his daughter Fatima, in a modest two-piece suit and head scarf, whose air of impassive dignity only melted when she saw Abdul and Auda enter the room behind Quatre. On the other side were Sadaul's guards. A silver coffee set had been laid out in front of them.

Across the table, before the doors that opened off to a balcony and the curtains that filtered the bright afternoon light, sat the OZ colonel, his officers seated uncomfortably beside him. When he saw Quatre and his comrades, he raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you?" he asked. He made no effort to hide his suspicion, nor the fact that it was limited to Quatre.

But they had rehearsed this scene before, and Quatre was not fazed when Sadaul motioned him forward and drew a fatherly arm around the boy's shoulders. "Forgive me, Colonel. This is my future son-in-law, Raberba." Because it seemed Quatre's looks needed explaining, the sharif continued: "He attends the University with my daughter Fatima and works for me in the off-season. Raberba, Colonel Waltfeld, of OZ's Arab Bureau."

"I hope I didn't come at a bad time," Quatre said.

"As a matter of fact, you have," said the colonel. "I have business of a rather sensitive matter with the Sharif—"

"Nonsense," Sadaul said with a wave. "Have a seat, my boy. You'll have to excuse me," he said to the colonel, "I should have told you sooner that I was expecting him. You see, as my future heir, his interests and mine are one and the same. And since your regiment is only passing through town, I doubt there's anything so sensitive to discuss that one more civilian couldn't hear."

The colonel smiled as he leaned back in his seat, but it was not without some curiosity. Of course, it wasn't all right. But Sadaul was correct: OZ's power in their town was extremely limited.

"So," Sadaul repeated for the newcomers' benefit, "we were discussing your proposal that I allow you to conduct inspections?"

The colonel's glance went once again to Quatre, but nevertheless he said, "My superiors believe it to be in your best interest that OZ takes a brief survey of the area to ensure your safety, and that would naturally include some inspections of local infrastructure. It would be entirely voluntary, of course. As I'm sure you know, there have been numerous reports of attacks by rebel mobile suit factions in this area, including a certain type of suit exceeding the legal mass limit of gundanium alloy, as determined by the former Alliance. We suspect a small number of terrorists, working independently but receiving orders from a single source, are responsible."

"Naturally," said Sadaul.

"Sharif," the man said with gravity, "two of these suits have been spotted within a five hundred kilometer radius of this town repeatedly over the last month. OZ is concerned for your town's safety. I have orders to assist you in any way possible in order to prevent you from becoming their next victim."

"Whose orders?" Quatre asked suddenly.

The colonel turned, giving Quatre a hard look for his curiosity. "His Excellency Treize's, of course," he said. "You can check if that would satisfy you—"

"Yes, it would."

"Aren't you a little young to be attending a university?"

"I look young for my age," Quatre said. The colonel nodded to himself and raised his coffee to his lips. "Why is Treize suddenly concerned with a backwater town like Medina?"

The man smiled. "You tell me," he said to Sadaul. "From what I gathered, it has to do with a certain individual who is rumored to be living in this part of Arabia." One of his officers placed a folder in his waiting hand, which he spread open on the table facing Sadaul. Glossies of the Maguanac suits including Sandrock were inside, as were old photographs of Rashid.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Sadaul said.

The colonel tapped the picture of Rashid. "Captain Rashid Qurama," he said. "Leader of a faction of rebel mercenaries who call themselves the Maguanacs. We thought you might have seen him, heard anything about his whereabouts."

Sadaul shook his head slowly as though thinking it over. "No. I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Yet you aided him against the Alliance, isn't that correct?"

"Yes," Sadaul said. "But that was over four years ago. I haven't seen him since."

"You think he's in some way connected to Sandrock?" Quatre said. "Do you think he is Sandrock?"

Again the colonel looked at him in surprise, but for a much different reason. It was the surprise of a man who'd had his mind read. "What do you know about Sandrock?" he said, and this time the question was aimed directly at Quatre.

"Nothing but rumors," the boy said with a nonchalant shrug.

"If we did know anything," Sadaul said quickly, "we'd tell you. We want peace in this world as much as your organization does, Colonel."

"In that case, you shouldn't mind us conducting a few investigations of our own. To set your mind at ease as well as mine."

Sharif Sadaul put his hand down hard on the table. His expression was no longer amused. "Let's stop beating around the bush," he said; "it will get us nowhere. Your coming here isn't due to any miscalculation. You intentionally came by way of the southern road knowing full well the situation it would put you in and knowing our policies regarding travelers. You think you can take advantage of our hospitality in your search for this Sandrock character or Rashid or whoever it is you're after."

"If you have nothing to hide, there should be no problem."

"Except that you are out of your jurisdiction, Colonel. This town is out of your jurisdiction. We've always cooperated with OZ in whatever way we could before. Today we've welcomed you and your convoy as guests, a relationship we hold in high regard before the eyes of God. But I know the law. I know we are under no obligation to open our private property to OZ without the appropriate paperwork—which, I take it, you don't have." The colonel pretended he hadn't heard. "We may have nothing to hide, but it's the principle of the thing, Colonel. Your Order has only ever shown us distrust. What good reason have you given us that we should oblige your demands?"

The other smiled. "You enjoy your freedoms here. I can see that."

"They are very important to us," Sadaul said. "There are two faiths that are paramount, Colonel: God and liberty. And allowing a scourge like OZ, guest though you may be, to do what it will with our town certainly goes against the latter. I cannot condone any unwarranted investigations. If you cannot accept that, I will take my complaint to Treize himself."

"Go ahead. It won't make any difference," the colonel said indifferently. "The days of the Alliance are over, Sharif. In case you don't remember, you had as much a hand in it as I did. You don't wish you could take the whole revolution back, do you?"

"If I had known then what was waiting for us . . .?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. I've tried to make you see sense, Sharif, but . . ." The colonel sighed. "If you would rather do nothing about the rebels, if you would rather live under a constant shadow of war, then what concern is it of mine? However, I should warn you my superiors will no doubt see your unwillingness to cooperate as a signal to start giving serious thought to making this town a jurisdiction of the Order."

Fatima's chair scraped the floor as she suddenly stood. "Are you threatening my father?"

Quatre felt his hand tighten into a fist as it sat in his lap.

"Not at all," the colonel said calmly. "I am simply trying to make him realize what consequences his actions might bring." He stood abruptly, his officers doing the same. "I'll let you think it over, Sharif. I wouldn't want you to make a mistake you'll regret. In any case, I appreciate the coffee. It was superb."

With that he picked up his cap from the table, turned, and walked out of the room, followed closely by his men. Sadaul's officers who had sat in on the meeting escorted them, leaving the five alone—Quatre and Sadaul, Auda, Abdul and Fatima. They sat in silence for a long moment, during which Fatima poured cups of coffee for Abdul and Auda from the tall silver pot, distraction evident in her actions.

"I don't think there will be any relaxing this homecoming," Sadaul said at last to them, his good humor coming back, however faint. "Not for quite a while anyway. It would look suspicious if we celebrated anything tonight, even if just your safe return. They would naturally wonder what we had to celebrate."

"Oh well," Abdul said with a sigh not entirely devoid of disappointment. "As long as I stay awake, I don't mind keeping an eye on OZ. The more we help out, the fewer excuses they have to stay, right?" He downed his coffee.

"I'll do what I can, too," Fatima added, eyes downcast.

"Right. It'll be fun," Auda joined in sarcastically. "I nearly get killed by a gundam, and I come home to find OZ waiting for me. I couldn't think of a better way to end the day."

Sharif Sadaul's eyes went wide. "You met up with another gundam?" he asked Quatre in a hushed voice as the other three got up to leave.

Quatre nodded.

"Then the colonel wasn't lying about there being two."

"He took off before I could catch his name. I couldn't even tell which side he was on." Quatre looked down at his hands. "We lost Yusuf," he said quietly, "and Said, but otherwise no casualties. It was a lucky shot by the Tragos." For some reason, he could not bring himself to say it was probable the other gundam had been responsible for Yusuf's death.

"May they go with God," Sadaul said, making a small sign.

"That's not all. The mobile suits they sent through the pass were a decoy."

"To distract the Maguanacs?"

"To coax us out. They must have narrowed the Maguanacs down to this area, and they needed some proof, some leverage against you, however inconclusive the evidence was. To be able to say we went for the bait is all they need to start putting the blame on you. And we . . ."

The sharif nodded as the full meaning of their situation sank in.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault, Quatre," he said. "How could you have known? But, I do think I need to talk to Rashid."

Quatre nodded. "On a secure line. I wouldn't trust the ground lines here after what OZ was just saying. If they suspect he's here, I can guarantee they'll be watching us all more closely." That must be why he's been acting so distracted, Quatre thought. Rashid knows he's a wanted man, and he knows he's the first one they will suspect. What great responsibility he took on for his men and the sharif without hesitation—and for Quatre, whose identity as Sandrock he seemed content to divert to himself.

"Get some rest, Quatre," Sadaul said gently. "You've had a long day, and I'm afraid it is about to become a long night as well. Now would be an opportune time to rest and conserve your energy."

"But the colonel—"

"Auda and Abdul will keep an eye on him." Sadaul smiled. "They're not so young anymore, unlike yourself."

Despite his sense of responsibility, Quatre did not want to argue. When the colonel left, he had realized how tired he really was.

On the way back to the apartment that the sharif kept for Quatre's use, he watched the OZ officers as they gathered in small groups in the streets, talking awkwardly to one another as they kept their hands on their rifles, and their eyes on the townspeople. They are more afraid of us than anyone here is of them, Quatre thought. Just as OZ—though it may not show it—is almost more fearful of dissent than anything else. It realizes how tenuous its hold on the nations really is.

The soldiers in the streets all looked so young. So, OZ was saving their more experienced for bigger fish. But they underestimated the Maguanacs. Indeed, they underestimated the Arab powers as a whole, despite that so many had already given in to OZ's bullying. What had these young men been told? That the Arabs were barbarians who needed to be saved from themselves?

One of the young men caught Quatre's eye as he passed. Though he stood with a group of other soldiers, he was apart from them as well, and his uniform seemed just slightly more faded by dust than those of the men around him. His hawk-like gaze that did not waver from Quatre unnerved him, but he forced himself to think nothing of it.

When Quatre was alone in his small apartment, he braced the window shutter open to let out the stuffy air trapped in the room, and looked out over the town. From this elevation, it did not seem invaded, nor in any way changed. The sun was in the western sky, and the remnants of the storm rustled the tops of the date palms and turned the giant white arms of the distant windmills.

Focusing on that peaceful sight, unadulterated by human complications, Quatre lay down on the bed on top of the afghan, unsure if sleep would even come to him. And closing his eyes, he let his mind wander.

—= o =—

Rigel was in the perfect position. From where he sat, he could spit down the backs of the Ozzies' necks and they wouldn't even notice. They were keeping a close eye on the goings-on around them but didn't see the man who crouched on the roof of one of the buildings, watching them through binoculars over the half-wall that bordered it. The angle of the sun at this time of day could be tricky—a reflection off the lens was all that was needed to give him away—but so far the soldiers below were too intent on their business to even glance in his direction.

This particular group was made up of five soldiers, three armed and wary, the other two carrying a rectangular box between them. The shape was something like a makeshift child's coffin, and from their effort he deduced it was heavy as well, much heavier than something of that size should be. It was close to the dinner hour, and even with the tension in the air the streets, especially this back one, were largely abandoned. He focused his binoculars as the two men gently lowered the crate and opened the lid.

It was dark in the shadows, with their bodies partially blocking his view. But Rigel needed little more then their actions to tell him what was inside as one soldier reached into the box. After a moment, the lid was replaced, and with a last glance around the five left as nonchalantly as they had come. Needless to say, this latest plot did not surprise him. He had seen enough of OZ's arrogance by now to be surprised by anything they did.

He readjusted his head set, ducking back out of view. "Rigel here," he said. "Ozzies just planted an unmarked crate near my position." He quickly relayed the section of town. "Looks like a bomb."

"Roger that," said Auda on the other end of the line. "But I'm sorry to say we've just become a little preoccupied here with one of our own."

"Tell him not to touch it!" Abdul told him, then concentrated on the equipment before him. He was hunched over another crate bomb, intent on the headphone he held next to his ear. Every movement he made, even if just a shift of his legs under him, was careful.

Behind him, the owner of the ice cream shop around the corner who had discovered the crate on a cigarette break cursed OZ to high heaven. "And _you'd_ better make sure you don't make any mistakes and blow up my business," he added pointedly to Abdul while Auda relayed the message. "I just put a lot of money into the facade."

Abdul sighed. "Sir, I'm an explosives expert. I know what I'm doing. But if you don't get out of my light and let me concentrate. . . ."

He understood the man was angry and frustrated, but he could do without the headache. He was relieved when Fatima stepped in for him.

"Sir," she said with infinitely more patience than he could muster up for the man, "I know how you feel, but please understand we're doing our best. It would help us if you could try to remain calm about this. I'm sure the soldiers don't really intend to harm us. They are from the Arab Bureau—"

"I don't care where they're from. They're still OZ!" The man wrung his apron nervously.

"Still, they must have intended for us to find the bombs," Auda said over his shoulder. "They weren't exactly clandestine about planting these things."

"But why make it so obvious," Fatima asked, "when they know we'll just defuse them?"

"Because we can't defuse them that easily," Abdul told them as he stood. "Not without taking a serious risk. And we can't move them. They're rigged so that any movement will trigger the detonation. _But_," he added before the shop owner could protest, "we do know they're not set to go off until midnight."

"So, what, you're just going to let it explode and OZ get its way?" said the man. "And who's going to pay for the damage to my business?"

A lopsided grin came onto the other's face involuntarily. "Sir, I assure you the Maguanacs aren't going to sit back and let anything just happen, but at the moment I think we have more important things to worry about. Like evacuating the area. Look at the bright side: you have six-and-a-half hours to safely move your assets."

The man grumbled mordantly about not being able to move the facade, but seeing as there was nothing else he could do, he reluctantly returned to his shop, waving off a reassuring word of Fatima's. Meanwhile, Auda contacted their base's control center. "Auda to command."

"We hear you." Luckily it was Rashid who answered. "Go ahead, Auda."

"Sir," he began, "we have a bit of a situation here. The convoy is planting time bombs around the city that cannot be moved. We know of at least two, both hidden in crates, but there are bound to be more of them. This one's set to go off at midnight, and I have little doubt that when we have time to examine the other, it'll turn up the same."

"I understand," Rashid said calmly. "We'll have to start evacuating anyone living and working in those areas. Get the word out, tell our men what to look for. It would be safest for the citizens to be underground by midnight. I'm certain we could harbor all of them temporarily. However, that leaves us with another problem. We must protect the town at all costs, but we have to safeguard the fort as well. If its location is revealed, we Maguanacs might as well not be here. Proceed with the evacuations of those people within vicinity of the blasts, but be as discrete as possible."

"Sir," Auda started hesitantly, "you're not thinking of letting them go off as scheduled?" That prompted another fit from the ice cream shop owner.

"We'll think about that when the time comes, but it should be considered as a possibility if all other options fail."

As Auda disconnected, one of the men sitting at a monitor in the control room said, "Sir, you need to see this."

Rashid went to his station and looked over his shoulder as the man explained, "Our cameras at the southern entrance spotted these two MS carriers pulling into an area behind that outcropping about ten minutes ago."

"They have guts, landing without an airstrip; I'll give them that. Any sign of suits?"

"Not yet."

"Keep me posted."

"I have a transmission from air traffic control," someone at another station said, a hand on his headphones. "Two mobile suit carriers requesting permission to land at Medina's airstrip." He halted to process the information coming to him faster than he could repeat it. "They're claiming no mobile suits on board. Just supplies and fuel for the Banadiya convoy. They're inviting the sharif to inspect the cargo holds to prove it."

Rashid crossed his arms over his chest. "And I have no doubt they're telling the truth. The mobile suits are in the carriers in the valley." He put a hand to the headset again. "Auda, come in."

"Here, sir," came the reply.

"Sorry to saddle you down with more trouble, but as long as I can't get close to him I need you to relay an important message to Sharif Sadaul."

"Certainly, sir. What's the situation?"

Rashid proceeded to fill him in. He knew the sharif was going to be furious. And he prayed they would be able to get him and the townspeople through the night.

—= o =—

The tinny ring of the communicator on the bedside table woke Quatre. It took a moment to recognize the source of the noise, but then he was wide awake, pushing himself up in bed to press the answering button. "Yeah," was all the greeting he could manage over a sudden yawn. He was expecting Rashid or Sadaul, or at least one of his comrades.

Instead, Fatima's voice greeted him through the tiny speaker. He blinked in surprise. "Fatima?"

"Quatre, sorry, but we need you down here quick," she told him.

"OZ hasn't actually carried through with the inspections—"

"No," she said, much to his relief, "but it may be just as bad."

She trailed off as the set on the other end was handed to Auda. "We're talking catch-twenty-twos here, Quatre," he said. "MS carriers have landed just outside the city."

"What?" Quatre started and quickly set about gathering up his things. "How many? Do they have Leos on board?"

"Or worse. The Arab Bureau is infamous for one thing: artillery. With our luck they'll be carrying hover Tragos, maybe a few Aries waiting in the wings. Who knows? The day is still young."

"Maybe they're taking them to Banadiya."

"That's what I'd hoped at first, but then why the need to be so careful? And there's more. . . ."

He filled Quatre in on the situation with the bombs, and the young man took in every piece of information intently, a worried look forming on his brow. Hurrying into town once he had been brought up to speed, Quatre caught up with the sharif just as he was leaving city hall, accompanied by Abdul and a few straggling guards. He was not sure of where Sadaul was going, but his dark mood concerned Quatre. The determined frown seemed incongruous with his usually cheerful features, and it seemed a struggle for him to keep his composure. "Oh, Quatre, I'm glad you're here," he said with a bit of a sigh, and Quatre could tell he meant it.

"Auda told me there were MS carriers outside town—" He almost tripped backing down a stair to keep pace with Sadaul.

"Yes, and two on the airstrip. But at least the latter, my officers have assured me, are carrying no mobile suits whatsoever." Sadaul snorted. "Damn OZ, that brood of vipers! Oh, yes, I'm sure they have the good of the Arab States at heart! They have the audacity to ask us for help, while in the meantime—" He lowered his voice and grabbed Quatre's arm as he spoke to him, lest any of the soldiers lining the streets and courtyards should hear what he had to say. "In the meantime they station God knows how many mobile suits outside our city and plant bombs in our streets. They would have us running straight from the frying pan into the fire."

"I'm sorry," Quatre said automatically. "If it wasn't for Sandrock you and the townspeople wouldn't be in this—"

"Oh, for the last time, don't apologize, Quatre." The sharif's tone was gentle despite his frustration as he admonished the young gundam pilot. "Don't you think I share just as much responsibility for keeping the Maguanacs here to begin with? I knew full well I'd put you in just as much danger as the townspeople by taking the risk, but it was a risk that had to be taken. And I know for certain most of the people here wouldn't have it any other way."

"I know that."

"Then put blame where blame is due," Sadaul said into Quatre's ear, and Quatre couldn't help a small smile. As he said it, they turned down a street lined with shops and restaurants, where OZ personnel milled around the various businesses their jeeps and trucks. "Now, if I could just get my hands on that Colonel Waltfeld. . . ."

"We could still take him out," Abdul said, and the nonchalance of his offer startled the sharif. "Rigel has men on the roofs—"

"Good heavens, no," Sadaul said. "Lord knows I hate that man more than Treize himself, but he is still our guest. And something like that will only make matters worse for us."

They found the man in question seated at an outdoor table of a restaurant, under the awning that extended over the establishment's porch.

As their group approached, Sadaul waved to his guards to stand down, and said simply once he was beside the OZ officer's table, "Colonel Waltfeld, would you excuse me a moment?"

The colonel looked up, and a grin came onto his wide mouth in recognition. He swallowed what he had been chewing. "Certainly, Sharif. Please, have a seat." His deep voice was much warmer than it had been just hours before as he gestured to the chair across from him. "Can I get you anything?" He started to raise an arm as if to call over a waiter.

"No, thank you. I'd rather stand. This shouldn't take long."

"Suit yourself." The colonel cleared his mouth with a swig of coffee. "What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping," Sadaul started, his forced genial manner matching that of the OZ officer, "that you might explain to me—"

"M-m," the colonel interrupted him as he took a sip of water to clear his throat, "before you start, allow me to commend your town on such exquisite kabobs. Now, I'm not just making small talk," he said with a defensive gesture. "As a self-styled connoisseur of sorts I mean that. It almost makes me hope I have an opportunity to spend more time here, on something other than official business."

"I'm not sure whether to take that observation with pride or caution," Sadaul said genteelly.

The colonel smiled. "Perhaps a bit of both, Sharif. Now. You wanted me to explain—"

"What two mobile suit carriers are doing on my town's airstrip."

Colonel Waltfeld regarded him sceptically. "I authorized your men a look inside. They must have informed you by now that there were no mobile suits on board. The carriers were for my men. After our previous discussion I called the nearest base to say we were in desperate need of supplies and fuel. So, they delivered. And when we leave your town they'll precede us to Banadiya." He paused to take another bite, oblivious to the silence that passed as he chewed. "You and your citizens have been a great help, Sharif. Not as hospitable as we're used to, but given the abruptness of our visit, I guess that can't be helped, can it?" He smiled as if at some private joke. "In any case, with our carriers' help we'll be ready to leave your city much sooner than planned. That's what you and your people want, isn't it?"

"Of course." The sharif's smile was strained. "When does your convoy plan to depart?"

"No later than eight."

"That's awfully soon. What's the rush? People will think you're running from something."

The sarcasm in Sadaul's words could not be clearer. Quatre watched the colonel's face closely for his reaction, anxious that he might take the bait and ask point blank what Sadaul referred to. Instead, he countered with silence and a hard look of his own, though a slight smile persisted in one corner of his lips.

One of the other officers, talking to the soldiers gathered around a jeep, saw the group standing beside the colonel's table and took notice of the very tenuous patience on the sharif's face. Warily, he approached, and saved the colonel from answering.

"Is there a problem, sir?" he said, gaze flitting between the sharif and his entourage and his commanding officer.

For a brief moment, Quatre mistook him for the young soldier who had watched him in the street, but the differences were clear close up.

"Nothing I can't handle, Lieutenant," Waltfeld said with only a nod in the man's direction. "The sharif was merely concerned we weren't staying in his lovely city long enough. He thought maybe we had something to hide by leaving so soon, but I was about to reassure him the decision was nothing personal. We must be getting to Banadiya with all possible haste." And as he said so, his stare dared the sharif to question his response.

If Sadaul noticed the subtle accusation of hypocrisy, he pretended not to. "If that were the case, then why not say so in the first place?"

"Because it was none of your concern. Besides, I'm wise enough to know when we're not welcome."

Sadaul huffed. "I cannot argue with the truth, Colonel. But let it be said that the Order's treatment of the Arab States' citizens has not exactly been adequate to warrant a reception you might deem 'welcoming.'"

"Is that so?" Quite suddenly, the colonel turned his head in Quatre's direction, and asked, "It's Raberba, right?"

"Right," Quatre said slowly.

"Would you say that statement is consistent with your experience at the university? I understand that the fresh young minds who receive their education in the cities are more optimistic about OZ's plans for the future. Then again, the fresh young minds in the city are statistically more likely to enjoy the benefits of OZ's plans than those in the country, which I understand is usually opposed to its brand of rhetoric. I take it the whole . . . Religion of Man thing doesn't go over too well in a place like this."

"I— I don't really know," Quatre said. "I'm more interested in science than public opinion."

"Is that right?" the colonel said. "Well, I can't say I blame you, in this day and age, if you should naturally cling to something that is actually concrete and formulaic. I suppose that explains your business in Medina. I hear the methods of irrigation here are quite a feat of engineering. In fact, I was eager to see them for myself, but," he chuckled, "as you know, the sharif would not allow it. So, maybe some other time."

He paused, as if something were coming to him on a signal. "I see the sharif keeps you close to his side. Medina must be a pleasant change from the city. A slower pace, I'd imagine."

"I guess. But everyone has his own battlefield."

"His own _battlefield_, huh? Is that a local saying? It's quaint."

On the inside, Quatre struggled. He couldn't help but admire the colonel for his method of stating his accusations as conjectures, and hating him for the results that undoubtedly won him in the east. Who could argue with such a style, without either appearing guilty or becoming as false as the other? And Colonel Waltfeld, for all he made himself to look it, was anything but false.

"Well, in any case it's quite an atmosphere you people have here," he said during Quatre's silence. "Why, if I weren't with the Order I too might want to settle down in a place like this. A man could grow addicted to your fine coffee." He held up his cup contemplatively. "This one, for example, has just a hint of cardamom, very pleasant, not so unlike the brew you served me earlier, Sharif. I wish you could tell me your secret, but perhaps that's just one more thing you keep classified." Raising his eyebrows suggestively, he took a sip.

"Maybe some other time," said the sharif sarcastically.

Smiling to himself as he was accustomed to do, the colonel put down his coffee, ignoring them both, and took up his knife and fork again. "Well, then," he said, and his meaning could not be clearer, "if there's nothing else you wish to discuss. . . ."

—= o =—

By nightfall the underground fortress was filled with Medina's townspeople and their belongings. The sunset had been a red one to match the desert itself, the horizon still tinged, it seemed, with the dust of that morning's storm. Now, with little more than an hour to go, the anxiety was palpable in the cool underground air, even as the people had grown quieter with each hour. Now they stood packed together, beside their families and business associates, to hear from the sharif what would become of the Maguanacs, of OZ who had caused them this trouble, and of their livelihoods.

As Quatre stared at their faces from his place on the old brick arches the mercenaries used as walkways between the mobile suits, he wondered what their reaction would be. And he wasn't sure if he dreaded more the possibility of having their personal displeasure and anger directed at him, or being given their unquestioning support.

The decision had already been made hours ago. "Call Abdul and his team back," Sadaul had said after reports their efforts were slow going.

"And let the bombs go off?" Rashid had asked.

"The townspeople are evacuated, and I don't want to see some of your best men endanger their lives for something that could be all in vain. Buildings, businesses—these things can be replaced. In any case, it is what OZ is expecting. It was never my intention to give into their bullying and scare tactics, and I don't wish to start now, but certainly you agree we are running out of options."

He paused in his pacing, his anguish over speaking the next words clear to anyone with eyes to see. "You must leave Medina."

"With all due respect, Sharif," said Rashid, "if we were to do so, we would only be placing you and your citizens in greater danger. Leaving is just what they want us to do."

"Then you must do it."

"And allow them to take control of Medina?"

It was obvious by the frown on his face that it was just as ponderous a question for the sharif as anyone. The same thoughts that crossed the minds of those around him had already occurred to him as well. "We can deal with OZ. Other cities that have been taken over claim the Arab Bureau is by comparison a much more . . . considerate division. They prefer to operate through local government rather than occupy city hall themselves. I don't think our citizens have much to fear other than their disrespect."

"You make it sound as though they were merely a pest to be tolerated. It won't be so easy. Those towns were not harboring organized resistance—"

"I'm aware of that. But would you rather they take the town be force? Would you rather they go through every last Maguanac until they come to us with nothing left in their hearts for your wives and children but vengeance?"

"And yet isn't that what you hired us to do? Each man is prepared to give his life for the freedom of the Arab States. Otherwise, he knows, there is no place for him in the Maguanac Corps."

"But he did not join to give it in vain, Rashid! We are only one town. Why should these men waste their lives defending one small town? Further resistance now will only make OZ's grip, when it gets one, tighter."

Quatre felt for both of these men, grappling with a dilemma such as this where there was no favorable outcome, but he wondered if either saw the full ramifications of their arguments.

"Sadaul," he spoke up, "you do realize that with the Maguanacs gone, OZ _will_ find this fortress. When that happens, when they find you've been actively opposing them all this time. . . . Sir, I think it's the ramifications of that that Rashid is concerned about."

Both the men visibly calmed, and Rashid's patient gaze told him he had been right.

"Yes. . . ." The sharif hesitated. "I didn't think we would hold them off forever. But we no longer have a choice. We will endure. Our people have always endured. But tyrants don't last, Rashid. In the end, God's will prevails, whatever it may be."

Though obviously troubled by the possibilities such a thing entailed, he did not let them overcome his hope.

Slowly, reluctantly, Rashid nodded his assent. "The Maguanacs will abide by your decision no matter what, Sharif. You know that."

Satisfied, Sadaul came closer to them, and looked up at both with conviction in his dark eyes. "I am not ordering you away forever," he said in a lower voice. "It has become apparent that this area is no longer safe for those who believe in fighting for their independence. But you may find other places more hospitable to you."

"Citizens of Medina," he said now, addressing the crowds, his small voice echoing in the vast chambers. "My dear people, as we speak, OZ's forces gather at our doorstep."

Voices whispered to one another at the reminder, and spirits seemed to falter, but he continued with a hand raised to silence them.

"At this moment, they inform me, four squadrons of Aries and Tragos, including hover Tragos, are stationed in the dunes—ready to destroy every last rebel fighter and pave a way for a total take-over of Medina. They have narrowed down Sandrock's location to this area, and they blame our city for the damage he's done. They accuse us of supporting rebels, even though if it were not for the aid of these same rebels four years ago they would never have succeeded in overthrowing the Alliance. They accuse us of harboring terrorists, while they rob nations of their sovereignty and freedom, and hardworking people of their livelihoods; and plant explosives in our neighborhoods, endangering innocent women and children."

He became grave then. "But they are at our doorstep, and we cannot win this battle. That is why I have told Rashid to take Sandrock and abandon Medina."

Uncertainty showed plainly on the myriad faces, begging to know, What will happen to us then?

"It is only for the safety of all of you that I ask him to do this. This latest trick of OZ is the final straw, the dropped gauntlet, but in order to win the peace we cannot be tempted to pick it up. Tonight, our Maguanac corps will engage the enemy. Rashid and his men will create a distraction while the fortress is cleared out.

"And we who remain must do our part and welcome the occupation of our city. Though it sounds traitorous to the memory of all those who have fought, too many times giving their lives to protect us, cooperation with OZ is the only way we can honor the sacrifices our brethren have made for us. Because cooperation with our occupiers, however temporary, is the only way we can hope for peace in Arabia at this time. In our actions we must have fortitude. But in our hearts we shall continue to oppose the tyrants and believe in a true peace, one founded on freedom rather than an iron fist, and have faith that one day Treize Khushrenada and all his generals will also see the folly of their actions.

"My fellow citizens, we must have courage! Our children may look back on these years as dark times, just as we look on the previous centuries, but we will prevail, as the Pioneers prevailed and triumphed over the hardships of the desert to found this place. Because while we still live we have faith, that one day Sandrock will return to liberate us all."

Sadaul raised his open hands in the air as though in blessing, and with his words swept the gathered townspeople up in a wave. They shouted their support against the OZ troops, men whooping, women letting out a shrill war cry that was amplified by the high stone ceilings, building upon itself like a roll of thunder.

But hearing his suit's name alone used as a rallying cry took Quatre aback. What did Sadaul think he was accomplishing by focusing on Sandrock? he wondered, disturbed by being thrust into the limelight. That he should encourage the townspeople to lay all their hopes on the shoulders of a mere adolescent boy? He was only one mobile suit pilot out of thirty-nine, gundam or not. He glanced up at Rashid, but his captain did not return his gaze.

There was much work to be done in preparing the troops for battle and evacuation. And though his mind was thinking of the future, Quatre busied his body in the present, offering his help on whatever suit repairs could be done in the time remaining before midnight. Sandrock was fine and ready for battle as it was, its wounds from the encounter with the gundam not withstanding. Quatre was not concerned about that.

He was concerned, however, when he saw his suit being loaded onto a flatbed for transport. Asking the men whose responsibility it was only told him it was Rashid's idea.

"I've decided not to put Sandrock into battle," Rashid said when confronted.

"But he's fine! And besides, I've fought with a handicap before; I can handle the damage to the chest plates," Quatre said, though he knew it was next to pointless to argue with the man who was like a father to him. "It's not that I have a problem with one of the other suits, but—"

"I'm not giving you one of the other suits," Rashid told him. "You're not fighting either. You're going with Sandrock ahead of us."

"But this is my fight, Rashid! How can you expect me to sit it out? It's because of Sandrock that we're in this mess—"

"Which is precisely why it will not be involved in his operation," said the other just as firmly. "And confirm the Order's suspicions."

Quatre clenched his jaw, wanting so much to say more, despite the logic he could see in Rashid's argument. Somehow he found himself climbing into the truck with the men who would be piloting his lift out, glancing over his shoulder as he slammed the door beside him and knowing he could do more. "What's the plan?" he barked to the man sitting next to him.

"Rashid and the others are going to engage the enemy to the north and west of the town," Beni told him. "We don't expect more than a few sentries to remain near the southern entrance after that, and Rigel's men should be sufficient to neutralize them—"

"So, we're going to steal one of the Order's own carriers."

Beni smiled. "It's going to be risky."

"Don't need to tell me twice." Slouching in his seat and steeling himself mentally, Quatre withdrew his pistol from its holster and checked it.

In another part of the hangar, Ahmad patted the leg of Auda's machine like he might pat a newly saddled horse. "Yep, she's all set and rearing to go. Didn't have much time for the nit-and-gritty work so I fixed her with a bran-new leg. From the knee down. But don't press your luck. It's by the grace of God we happened to have a spare one lying around."

Abdul whistled as he pulled on his gloves, standing and gawking on his suit's hatch. "That shine's gonna give us away."

"Nothing a good dive in the sand won't cure. Hey, I owe you one, Ahmad," Auda said, to which the other man chuckled.

"Damn right, you do." Ahmad put up a hand in salute, eager to get to his own machine. "So you and your suit better make it out in one piece."

"Auda! Abdul!"

The two Maguanac pilots turned as they were climbing into their cockpits to see Fatima running down the old brick scaffolding toward them. When she stopped, looking up at them while she caught her breath, her dark eyes said everything. "You two better be careful out there."

"If you say so, my lady?" Abdul grinned. "Of course."

"You keep safe too, kiddo," Auda added. "We're coming back."

Fatima smiled. "I know."

With brief salutes from their pilots, the suits' cockpit hatches closed up tight, and Abdul and Auda walked their suits to the door from which they would be entering the battle. "I don't know when," Auda said as though to himself, "but we're coming back."

Although his friend could not see it, Abdul smiled as he heard that tinny voice, pausing in his last-minute checks of his operating system. "Sure thing. You can't get rid of family forever. Yet somehow I have a feeling this is the last we'll be seeing of Medina for a long while. Fare thee well, sweet lady. In our absence, fare well."

—= o =—

From the driver's seat of a jeep parked on a dune far beyond the city limits of Medina, Lieutenant DaCosta looked anxiously at his watch. The city seemed asleep and peaceful from where they were, wrapped in the silence of the deep desert night, nothing amiss. Not for the first time that day, DaCosta questioned his superior's plans.

"Colonel, permission to speak frankly?"

Leaning on the back of the seat, a long coat covering his hunter green uniform, an old tin cup of coffee in one hand, binoculars held to his eyes with the other, Colonel Andrew Waltfeld let out a sound that was half way between a sigh and a snort. "DaCosta, when have you ever needed my permission for that?" he mumbled, as much to himself as the other officer.

"It's just that, I wonder if we have the right place." DaCosta paused, but the other said nothing. "Having seen the reports myself, the information is rather inconclusive."

"Intelligence has narrowed the mercenaries' location to within three hundred kilometers of Medina. How much more specific do you want them to be?"

"Some concrete proof of mobile suit activity, for one. Tracks that didn't get blown away by the wind."

"Ah, but you're missing the point. Medina _itself_ is specific." At DaCosta's silence, the colonel elaborated. "Don't you wonder why the Pioneers would have bestowed such a great name, a name with such history on such a meager scrap of a town? Hm? Unless it's not really such a scrap. As the saying goes, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover."

But if that was supposed to explain anything to DaCosta, if it was supposed to bring to mind some buried reference, he missed it. What did ancient history have to do with finding the rebel mercenaries? He shivered in his uniform, silently cursing the desert and its extremes. "Still, we're taking an awful risk here. If Sandrock doesn't come—"

"Oh, he'll come, all right." An eerie smile crept onto Waltfeld's lips, and he lowered the binoculars and handed them to DaCosta. "Or someone will. Because these men understand the way the game is played. They've backed themselves into a corner. We have the roads surrounded. There's only one direction in which to make their move now and that's our direction. And when they make it they will lead us to their base of operations. What could be more simple than that?"

He took a sip of coffee, closing his eyes as he savored it, and once again DaCosta was left to wonder if the colonel really understood his concern.

"And what end more honorable?" Waltfeld continued. "It's high time OZ reevaluated the way they deal with the Arab States. The Order could learn a lot from such a worthy opponent. Not least among which how to make a damn fine cup of coffee."

The silence stretched on for a long moment as he took another leisurely drink.

"DaCosta, by any chance, does the name Raberba ring any bells to you?"

DaCosta hardly had to consider it. "No, sir, I can't say that it does. Why?"

"Hm." Waltfeld stared into the distance. "Perhaps no reason."

Distracted by his question, DaCosta forget to recheck the time. In comparison, Waltfeld seemed to know exactly when the seconds counted down to midnight, as if he ran on a very precise internal clock.

On cue, the humble town in the distance that all but blended into the desert around it was brilliant with fire. The lieutenant watched through the binoculars as the bombs planted in separate sectors of the city flashed and exploded in balls of flame, lighting up the night. Despite that they had been set to the same moment, they still managed to take their turns detonating, in a random, organic manner. Pillars of smoke rose in the aftermath. He imagined there to be panic in the streets as property and livelihoods went up in that smoke. With that in mind, he turned to look at his commanding officer and was somewhat taken aback by the fascinated grin on Waltfeld's face.

"Sir, won't Banadiya protest if we issue the order to attack while the city is vulnerable like this?"

"I'm not that heartless, am I, DaCosta?" the colonel said. "I don't intend to attack a bunch of evacuees with mobile suits. There would be no honor in that. The purpose of this exercise. . . ."

He trailed off and fell silent.

A minute passed and felt like many more. DaCosta began, "Sir—"

But Waltfeld cut him off with a signal. "Do you feel that?"

He felt nothing. "Feel what, sir?"

"They're coming out. Like ants out of an anthill."

DaCosta spoke without truly thinking of what he said. Simply what rose to the top of his mind.

"For revenge?"

"Precisely."

But the lieutenant saw nothing but dunes separating them from the town. Still, his superior must have noticed something. He reached for the radio handset, sitting himself down heavily in the seat.

"Attention, Specials," Waltfeld said into the receiver, a lazy edge creeping into his voice with the promise of action so late at night. "The bait has been set. Assume formations and prepare to engage the enemy. Red and Green teams will form the front lines and provide steady fire. The goal is to bring the rebels further out and into the range of the Tragos' beam cannons. Use extreme caution until we've had a chance to thin their numbers that way."

Brief affirmatives came back from the Leo and legged Tragos team leaders.

"Blue Team, keep it tight on the northerly route. The rebels may try to use it as a loading ground while we're distracted on the western side. I don't want any ground troops slipping by we'll have to hunt down later."

"I copy," came the Aries leader's reply.

Thumb off the piece, Waltfeld said as an aside to his lieutenant, "Now we sit back and wait for the fun to begin."

On the front line, like on the hill where their commanding officer sat, the night continued to tread into the silence of the desert. The faint tremors beneath the earth of a moving mobile army went unnoticed to the pilots of the Order's suits, who could not detect them over the thrum of a legged Tragos' engines, or the ubiquitous electronic noises inside an MS cockpit.

Crouched in the lee of one of the hover variations of his suit, Red Leader adjusted his goggles over his helmet's straps and waited for either radar or the clearness of the air to alert him to the enemy's presence.

Yet despite the still air, strangely calm after the tempest of that morning, none on the Order's front line was able to spot the doors of the underground fortress grinding open. Only small, random swirls of dust dislodged by the breeze in the distance obscured the blinking red lights of the town's small airfield beyond.

"Where are they?" the pilot of the suit beside him hissed to himself in frustration.

"They should be appearing on radar any moment now," Red Leader assured him. "Hold your fire 'til they're in range and wait for my signal."

As though on cue, the sky to their left lit up.

"This is Blue Leader!" came the frantic voice of the Aries pilot. "We've engaged the enemy! I repeat, Blue Team has come under attack at the northern road!"

Unleashing a stream of rapid chain rifle fire, he opened the thrusters in reverse to avoid a volley of fire, pulling higher into the sky. A couple of his teammates were not so lucky, one hit dead-center by a rocket-propelled grenade, the other plummeting to the ground as it ejected a damaged engine that exploded a moment later. The rest who were airborne continued to shower the brown suits below them with missiles, but the Maguanacs' blast shields held well, their fire undiminished.

Blue Leader cursed under his breath, and heard the colonel's voice in his ear. "Did you see where they came from? Which direction?"

"They came from all around," Blue Leader told him. "That's all I know, sir. It's like they came up right out of the ground. Like frickin' moles."

"Out of the ground, huh. . . ."

As Waltfeld trailed off, the Aries pilot felt his patience starting to wane. "Sir, we need reinforcements bad. The hover Tragos we have here won't be enough to hold them off. We need Leos."

"That's a negative, Blue Leader. You'll have to make due with what you have—"

There was a loud roar as one of the hover Tragos assigned to his group exploded, the heat of the beam cannon mounted on it sending the arcing flames high into the sky.

With frustrated, jerky movements, Blue Leader switched channels and issued his commands quickly. "Blue Three and Four, protect the Tragos near the cliffs. The rest of you, retreat to the plain and try to scatter the enemy. Be on the lookout for the first sign of air transport. If you see any, shoot them down."

A dozen reply lights blinked blue-green on his display in affirmation, and on the screen faint black shapes like bats moved across the night sky. He alighted beside the other remaining hover Tragos, bracing his legs as he hoisted his chain rifle into position. "Blue Six, you're with me."

During that time, the troops on the western road had been occupied by the first rounds of mortar fire. The roar of them pierced the night, throwing up great clouds of dust where they hit the earth that obscured the air around the ranks of Tragos and Leos. But the Order's troops held their ground. The shapes of the Maguanacs' suits could barely be made out in zoom. The red lights of their cyclopean cameras blinked off and on through interference the same as those of the airstrip as they approached. There was no sign of where they had come from.

Ranks closed, both sides exchanging rifle fire when they were able through the gaps in their shields, whittling away body parts with excruciatingly little progress. A few Leos dropped. Whether their pilots had been hit or the machines were simply incapacitated, there was no time to stop and check. They retreated steadily into the dunes, the rebels following them seemingly clueless as to what awaited them.

"Hover Team, on my mark—" Red Leader said.

He was cut off as the sound of a jet's engines roared low overhead. He looked up, and recognized the wide-bodied craft that soared over their heads from out of the southeast as one of the Order's own mobile suit carriers. But he could not believe any of their crews would be insolent or stupid enough to be abandoning the field in the midst of battle.

In their own cockpits, the Maguanacs saw the takeoff and held their breaths as the aircraft rose. OZ's mobile suits for a moment seemed stunned, unsure what to make of seeing their own vessel streaking over their ranks. Then—

"Quatre here," came the voice over the mercenaries' com channel. "Sandrock and the rest of us are all safe and sound. We'll proceed on to the checkpoint ahead of you."

The cheers from the Maguanac soldiers that preceded that bit of good news almost drowned out his "Godspeed," and some of the tension of the battle was lifted from their spirits.

"Well, Maguanacs?" Rashid's voice boomed, his renewed confidence clear in it. "You don't want to disappoint Quatre."

"No, sir!" Abdul grinned.

Some meters away, Auda's suit clenched its giant gundanium fist. "Now for a little payback."

"Red Nine, Red Thirteen, come in," Red Leader tried. But there was no answer from the guard he had left stationed near the MS carriers. "Damn," he muttered to himself. "Hover Team, fire at will! Fire!"

Beside him, the bombardment suits rocked back on themselves and made the ground tremble with every blast, kicking more sand up into the air than their hovering platforms already did. When the blasts connected inside the Maguanacs' ranks the suits in front were lit with golden halos of fire. Still they advanced. Behind his blast shield, the Tragos pilot planted the suit's wide feet and drew its beam sword, anxious for first contact.

"Red and Green teams, prepare to engage the enemy at close range!"

—= o =—

Another voice was cut off in a wave of static over the radio, cursing the hover Tragos with his last breath. Rashid called their men to rally—their troops were already beating back the enemy on the northern front—but the main line did not seem to be faring as well as they had hoped.

"Damn it!" Slamming his palm down on the panel, Quatre pushed himself bodily from the copilot's chair and dashed to the cargo hold of the plane. "Turn us around!" he yelled over his shoulder.

Exchanging a glance with the pilot, Beni raced after him. "Quatre, where are you going?"

"We can't just sit up here and do nothing!"

"But Rashid gave us specific orders to get you and Sandrock out of the area."

Quatre ignored him, however, and climbed into Sandrock's cockpit. Strapping himself in, he yelled through the open hatch, "Beni, they have hover Tragos down there! If we don't do anything, our men will get slaughtered! They already are!"

Beni knew he was right, but he didn't see that there was anything they could do.

For a moment, the same sense of helplessness grasped Quatre. Then his gaze fell on the weapon that had been left by the Specials aboard the aircraft: a hover Tragos' beam cannon. He could hardly believe such a fortunate turn of events, but it would take more luck yet if he was to make his rapidly forming plan successful. "Turn us around!" he shouted again, louder, and brought the gundam online.

When the banking began to subside, Quatre raised Sandrock to its feet. He picked up the massive beam cannon and hefted it in the gundam's hands as he stepped to the aft of the plane. Connecting the weapon to his own suit's system, he was able to charge it to near full capacity. He knew Sandrock wouldn't be able to tolerate the cannon's power demand for long on its own reserves, and that he may only get one or two shots off. But one or two would be better than none. The real trick would be making sure they counted for something.

He hoisted the gun awkwardly onto Sandrock's shoulder. "Okay, lower the ramp!"

"Yes, sir!"

A smile brightening his face as he began to see where this was going, Beni did as ordered.

With a creak Quatre could feel through the gundam's legs, the ramp eased open, the ghostly purple dunes and rocks of the desert opening up beneath him. Though it quickly passed, Quatre felt a dangerous rush as though at any moment he and his suit would plummet toward the earth. As they moved across the sky, the pilot easing them lower, the dust kicked up by the battle and the golden flashes of beam rifles moved slowly into view, dark shapes looking like miniatures inexplicably brought to life from the high altitude. Sandrock followed the flashes of beam cannons to their sources with its cameras, zooming in and confirming the rosy suits for its pilot.

Quatre aimed carefully and fired. He felt a powerful jerk as the cannon let go a volley, pushing upwards on Sandrock's joints. The air before him in the hatch opening lit up in a brilliant flash of white, then he heard the whir of the suit's generator recharging the cannon for another shot.

Below them, as Sandrock faithfully showed, the dunes lit up in bubbles of red fire and dust, explosions that could only be caused by the intense heat of the beam cannon's blast connecting with the intense heat of a Tragos core.

He aimed at another group and fired again.

The Maguanacs on the ground needed no one to tell them who had fired the shot. Such quick thinking, and stubbornness to defy orders, could have belonged to none other than Quatre. Auda paused as he tore a Leo's arm from its heavy ball socket to look up into the sky. And Abdul felt his spirits lifting already as he moved through the enemy's ranks, ramming them off balance with his thick shoulder armor, slashing at the suits' weak points with beam tonfa. Despite the deadly energy of the gunfire around them, there was an unspoken agreement among the two and others to make an effort to spare the Special pilots where possible. They were not so sure they would have done the same thing in the deep desert, however, far away from any civilian city.

As the battle waged on, the number of OZ suits still operational dropped, but it still appeared to any observer that, with their far greater numbers from the start, they had nonetheless succeeded in gaining the upper hand. After their quick advance, encouraged by the assault on the hover Tragos, the Maguanacs were now forced to start their retreat. But it was not entirely with regret.

Under the barrage of laser fire, the air had become hazy. The stamping of hundreds of heavy mobile suit feet had created chaos out of the landscape, churning up clouds of dust and sand despite what light winds there were to sustain them, like silt churned up from the ocean floor. Into that chaos, the Maguanacs shot flares. But instead of simply lighting up the space around them, the flashes reflected off the smoke and individual grains of sand like they were mirrors. The Leos who had activated night vision in hand-to-hand combat went still as their pilots struggled with their temporary blindness.

And in that confusion, the Maguanacs retreated back into the desert night.

"Colonel!" said Blue Two in his late team leader's place. "Carriers taking off to the north of Medina, sir! They're using the road as a runway!"

He tried to lift off the ground in order to proceed after them, but the left leg of his suit refused to fold itself away, and the suit shifted as the damaged leg engine faltered in takeoff.

"Let them go," Waltfeld told him instead.

"But, sir—"

"It's all right. They've already been defeated here."

Leaning back in the passenger seat of the jeep, the colonel let the wind blow hard against his face and through his unruly hair. The smell that reached his nostrils was acrid and bitter, like a whiff of strong coffee: the smell of burned ozone. So the infamous Sandrock had not shown his face, but neither had Waltfeld been proven wrong on all counts. Medina was ready for OZ's embrace, the rebels that had haunted it exorcised. To that extent, at very least, he had succeeded. "Rounding up the survivors and finding that base are our main concerns now," he told Blue Two. "The others are no longer a threat to us."

A wry smile touched Waltfeld's lips. "From this point on, they will only be a threat to themselves."

—= o =—


	2. Knights of Cydonia part B

It was the first rosy lights of dawn that woke Quatre from his deep sleep. His forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, absorbing the hum of the carrier's engines, the sun's rays invaded his eyes through their lids. They reflected off the entwining fingers of the Mamers River that ran like ribbons of gold north through the ancient, eroded purple hills toward the distant sea, a welcome sight. Tiny, monochrome blocks of town and threads of paved road weaved around great, organized blocks of cultivated lands in various tones of green that cuddled up to the river's banks. Quatre did not recognize the particular bends in the river, or the shapes of the islands, but did remember what to expect as they got nearer the sea: the sparkling glass windows of skyscrapers and white minarets of New Mecca.

He sat up in the cabin seat, stretching his legs, and was instantly aware of the soreness in his neck and back. The events of last night, including the meeting at the checkpoint at which he had parted from Sandrock and boarded this aircraft, were vague now and felt like a dream that may or may not have actually happened. Across from him, Abdul slumbered on, his open mouth giving him away where the dark glasses covering his eyes did not, while in the seat behind, his fellow explosives expert Faraj's scarred chin rested on his chest.

Quatre unbuckled his safety belt and rose silently from his seat. He made his way toward the cabin, where Rashid and Ahmad sat at the ship's controls. He entered just as his captain said something into the radio about requesting immediate landing. "We have been circling in compliance with the prince's orders, but some of our transports are low on fuel." It was the tone of his voice, just barely hiding his frustration behind a thin veneer of professional calm, that troubled Quatre. Had he missed something while he was sleeping? Why should this visit to the city be any different from those that came before?

"Copy that," the man on the other end of the line said after a moment's hesitation. "You have clearance for landing on the third runway. You will be escorted by security personnel to the proper location, where you will wait until you receive further instructions before disembarking your aircraft. Please confirm these orders meet with your satisfaction."

Rashid let out a sigh. It gave no sound, only a rise and fall of his shoulders to indicate its occurrence. "They are satisfactory," he said.

"Please stand by."

Quatre waited until the connection was terminated to voice his surprise. "Why are we being told to wait?" He felt like a child, asking questions he felt he should have known the answers to.

"You're awake," Rashid said over his shoulder. "Ahmad, get Quatre some breakfast."

Ahmad got up to comply but Quatre stayed put in the doorway. He didn't like being treated like a child, either.

"Why do we have to wait?" he said again. "What's happened in New Mecca?"

"Nothing," Rashid answered after a second. "They are reluctant to allow us to land within the city."

"They've never had a problem with the Maguanacs before."

"No, but now that the Maguanac Corps have been branded rebel fugitives, it would not look good for a neutral state to be caught harboring them. And I can't say I blame Faris. OZ has agents everywhere, waiting for one good reason to bring New Mecca under its cloak."

The radio crackled back to life as it hailed their plane, cutting him off. A brief exchange, and landing procedure was initiated.

Ahmad made to help Quatre as per his captain's orders, but it was clear he was eager to return to his duty. "I can handle myself," Quatre told him and slipped out of the cockpit.

There was a small pantry off the cockpit that had been stocked with packaged foods and drinks. Not hungry but knowing he had to replenish his reserves, he took the first protein bar his fingers closed around and pulled a bottle of water out from amid its brethren. With those two things in tow, he went back to his seat, laying a hand on Abdul's shoulder before dropping heavily into it.

"Rise and shine," he told Abdul. Faraj did not stir, though Quatre made no particular attempts to keep his voice down.

Abdul stretched, sat up in his seat, and automatically pushed his dark glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "What time is it?" he asked groggily.

"Almost seven."

"Are we there yet?"

"Just about." Quatre ripped open the foil packaging disinterestedly. As he did so, Abdul glanced out the window before concentrating his attention on the boy. "Rashid's finally bringing us down for a landing. We've been circling in the air for a while. Faris's orders."

"Heh." Abdul snorted. "That old war horse. Doesn't want our reputation rubbing off on his, is that it?"

Quatre took an awkwardly large bite of his breakfast as an excuse to say nothing. Abdul preferred to take his silence as a yes.

Upon landing, their aircraft were guided to hangars on the edge of the field. An armed escort marked with the prince's seal accompanied them. It must have appeared strange to anyone watching from a distance to see the caravan of behemoths that were OZ mobile suit carriers being led across the tarmac, they even stood out among the freighters and passenger jets like dinosaurs. It was only natural the prince would want them out of civilians' sight as quickly as possible.

The passengers of Quatre's carrier crowded into the cockpit to watch, filling up the seats, leaning forward in anxiety. All except Rashid, who leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he stared deep in thought and contemplated their next move.

When they arrived, large black cars with black tinted window glass awaited them. A heavyset but well-built man in wool slacks and a dark shirt, missing his tie and jacket but looking incongruous enough in his well-pressed attire as it was, stepped out of the passenger side of one and put a hand to his hip as he leaned the door closed. With a full, gray beard that was easily longer than his short-cropped hair, his gaze remained steady on Rashid and the rest as they departed the carrier, the faint scar beneath his left cheekbone only magnifying his intimidating air. There was an attitude about the man that made the guards who held their rifles at the ready at their sides seem insignificant in comparison.

"Good God, Rashid," the man called to the Maguanac captain, his voice gruff, "what mess have you gotten these fine, upstanding men into this time?"

But as soon as he had said so, a lopsided smile appeared on the man's lips. A cool smile.

"Good to see you again, as well, Ashman," Rashid returned with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, but if he took the same pleasure in their meeting, he did not show it as clearly. "I take it the news from Medina has reached Prince Faris by now."

"It has," the man called Ashman said matter-of-factly. "And he is deeply disturbed by the whole affair. Namely that you should bring your corps into New Mecca before the ink on the warrants for your arrests is even dry." For the first time, he glanced around and seemed to notice his own guards. "I apologize for the cavalry—"

"Faris doesn't trust us."

"It's more for show than anything. We want to make sure everyone knows Prince Faris is taking the necessary precautions to guarantee this city's safety. You understand."

"I understand this is how he treats his loyal servants when they are in need," Rashid said, but he did not seem to disagree with the other either.

Ashman sobered. "What do you want me to say, Rashid? With OZ breathing down our neck every day, eager to see us make one mistake, give one sign that we might have the resources to oppose them, you should be thankful he doesn't turn you around as soon as he hears you want to land on his airstrips. Or turn you in, and get the Order off his back once and for all."

However, both men knew the absurdity of that without needing to say it.

"His excellency wishes to discuss the matter with you further at his offices," Ashman continued, opening the back door of the cab near which he stood. "He asked especially that the pilot of the Sandrock gundam that has made the Order so hot and bothered accompany you.

"_Alone_," he emphasized to Abdul, who looked disappointed to have his train of thought read so clearly.

"He and I agree," Ashman continued in a lower tone, "we would rather not make a big fuss in front of all these prying eyes and ears."

"And what will happen to our suits?" Quatre asked, reluctant to get into the cab without some reassurance in that regard.

"Prince Faris will be keeping a security detail on them. His finest team."

"He doesn't trust the Maguanacs anymore?"

Ashman turned his gaze in the boy's direction. "On the contrary. It's for the Maguanac Corps' protection, Master Quatre."

Though the other's tone did not indicate it, Quatre knew the title was uttered as it had been since he was an inquisitive child with sarcasm, and it made his ears burn briefly in embarrassment.

Standing patiently by the black car, his hand on the door, the prince's man waited. "Shall we?" he said to Rashid, who in turn turned to Abdul.

"I'm trusting you and Ahmad with Sandrock," Rashid said before folding his large frame into the car.

"What about you, Quatre?" Abdul said, as though by way of protest.

"I'll be fine," Quatre reassured him and obediently climbed into the backseat, whereupon Ashman closed the door gently behind him, sealing them within the still, rich interior of the cab.

"I know I can't expect you to believe me," the man said to him over his shoulder as he sat down in the passenger seat, regardless of Rashid's presence, "after being raised on this man's suspicious world view, but I am sincere when I say neither Prince Faris nor I would let anything ill befall that gundam of yours while it remains within the borders of New Mecca."

"Thank you," was all Quatre said in return.

The ride into the heart of the city was a pleasant one, the driver's pace quick and smooth through the old, wide streets. The tan stone facades of the closely-packed buildings showed a mixture of old world architecture both eastern and western, reflecting the backgrounds of the various generations who had made it what it was. Through the dark windows they watched shop owners preparing for the day in the chill of the morning—saw groups of chatting women in black pass young university-age men and women in western fashions pass donkeys laden with someone's morning shopping. Greenery overflowed from the median in the road as though in a pointed celebration of life, and the main avenues themselves pointed faithfully downtown to the great mosque around which New Mecca had been plotted, radiating outward from the sun's reflection off the gold-tiled dome. Its pinnacle and the tops of the four minarets stood tall against the green morning sky, visible even over the roofs of the buildings that came between their car and the mosque.

What natural relic the mosque and its city had come to rest on was not a meteorite but something much rarer: a stromatolite uncovered in the days of the Pioneers. To the casual observer, it was a massive pillow-like fossil rock that had once been a colony of tiny, filament-like blue-green algae, each organism lined up vertically against the others in the shallow, salty waters of an ancient shore. Its diameter was only as long as a medium-sized dog, and no taller than the average man's knee, by no means an impressive size.

But what it had represented to the Pioneers, especially to those Arab founders of the city, the great-grandsons of Beduin nomads, was much more. It was evidence of life, even if long, long gone. Something had led them to find it, to assure them that if it had been possible to eke out a living on this world once before, it could be possible again.

If God had been in this world before, he could be in it again.

Now, with the Pioneers long turned to dust in their graves, life was in no short supply in this the accepted head of the Arab States. One could not turn his head without seeing some kind of green, or just how well life flourished in the packed markets at midday.

They stopped before a gate, which led off the street into an inner courtyard of the city's palace. With Ashman to lead the way, the two were taken to Faris's office. It was a spacious room with walls dressed in rich fabrics, and the tall windows opening up to the town dwarfed the one significant piece of furniture in it, a faux-cherry desk that stood before them facing the door. A large landscape of a fantastical, ancient Islamic port-town was mounted on the wall beside the door, something that perhaps one of the Pioneers themselves must have found sentimental enough to bring all the long way here.

The gazes of the threesome who entered through the double doors were concentrated on the form of the man who stood behind the desk, and turned away from the window when he noticed their presence. He was perhaps in his late forties, tall and cool in manner, his physique of the type that had once been strictly disciplined—a fine juxtaposition to Sadaul. He wore a three-piece suit of impeccable tailoring, and the golden seal of his office was worn about his neck on a ribbon, pillowed by his silk tie.

"Prince Faris," Ashman said woodenly, "Captain Rashid Qurama and Quatre, Sandrock's pilot, are here to see you."

The two gave small bows, but Faris did not seem to pay the gesture any mind.

"Let's make this meeting brief, gentlemen," he said. "It has been difficult for me to spare even this short time to speak with you in private. I have been ignoring the calls from the Arab Bureau's Supreme Commander since this morning so that I might have an opportunity to hear your side of the story before I deny any and all involvement in the affair. I should return them before he starts to suspect. More than he no doubt does already, that is."

"I understand, your excellency," Rashid said solemnly, "and I take full responsibility for what happened at Medina."

Faris raised his brows. "Really?" An edge of irritation crept into his voice. "Then perhaps I should have you give the Supreme Commander the details yourself, Rashid. Or explain what happened to our friends in Gehon, and Moab, and the rest of the free States who are worried about what will happen to them now that the Maguanacs have been flushed out of their headquarters. Or better yet, maybe they should hear it from the gundam pilot himself."

"I beg your pardon, but Quatre is still only a child—"

"And that Sandrock machine? He operates it far better than anyone else could ever dream, and you still call him a child?"

"We can't reveal Sandrock's identity at this time, your excellency. With his identity known, OZ would hunt him down relentlessly, and the resistance would be forced underground again."

"What identity?" Ashman butted in behind them with a snide half-smile. "You don't even know what he really is."

"Underground, you say, Rashid?" Faris said over him. "I was under the impression that was part of the problem. It didn't seem to do Medina any good in the end."

"It kept OZ from locating the Corps for four years!" Quatre said.

The other three fell silent, perhaps at his brashness. Perhaps to see where he would take this train of argument next. "Quatre," Rashid started firmly.

"Sadaul said to put blame were blame is due," Quatre continued, glancing at his captain for support out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, he ordered us out of Medina, and Rashid led us here, and perhaps none of that would have been necessary if I had not begun to pilot Sandrock in the first place. But Treize and OZ are the ones who want to control us, sir, just like the Alliance you helped them remove."

Faris regarded him for a long moment, during which his man was silent beside them.

At last the prince drew his chair away from his desk and sat down in it. "Very well, then," he said, his attention focusing solely on the young man. With equal parts umbrage and curiosity, he nodded slightly. "Since you seem to have all the answers, you tell me what happened, Quatre."

For a short time Quatre explained the situation as he knew it. From the battle in the sandstorm only the morning before to their flight out of Medina, he told the prince everything that was of some significance, from the OZ colonel's motives and agendas, to Sadaul's weighing of the grave dilemma in which he had been left. Faris nodded slowly to himself, listening rapt to everything, occasionally asking for clarification.

Again, Quatre left out the encounter with the other gundam. And again, he was not sure why some budding sympathy for the pilot of that machine caused him to do it, even though he knew nothing about the stranger to whom he had spoken for a brief second. But Faris seemed to have confidence enough in the solidity of his story not to notice. And when he asked Rashid if there was anything he wished to add, Quatre was at once surprised and relieved that Rashid chose not to mention it either.

When they had finished, Faris sat quietly for a few minutes with his fingers tented before him, digesting all he had been told. "I see your dilemma," he said slowly. "With your connection to Medina severed, so is your access to easy money, supplies . . . not to mention a place to hide your suits from the Order's agents. These things will shrivel up without a patron, and take the Maguanac Corps' survival along with it."

"And the resistance's survival as well," Rashid said.

"And that is why you thought of coming to me."

"New Mecca is the wealthiest of the Arab States. Everyone looks to Prince Faris for guidance when it comes to working with OZ—the man who once assisted them to victory against the likes of Septem and Onegel. I won't pretend we don't covet your sponsorship, your excellency. But our problem is much deeper than that."

"I agree," Faris said, for once with some enthusiasm. "It is a problem of reputation. Who will hire you to fight for them now that they have seen Medina fall?"

"With all due respect," Quatre said, "nothing has been decided yet with regards to Medina."

"But you _were_ found out," said Ashman. "There will be quite a price on Sandrock's head after this mess, and rest assured Sadaul will not get out of it with just a slap on the wrist. The other nations will know, if it can happen once, it can happen again. Besides, in these desperate times, it would be so easy for one man to trade in Sandrock's whereabouts for the Order's bounty. If OZ has been successful in one thing it is spreading fear. Who can really trust anyone these days?"

Faris glanced up at him, before turning his deep-set eyes again on the two MS pilots. "New Mecca cannot be the patron you are looking for, Captain. At this stage in the game it is wisest, for our safety, that we remain neutral."

"Then where should my men go?" said Rashid.

"That is not my concern." The prince rose from his chair, prompting the others to do the same. "I will allow them access to the resources they need to go anywhere in Arabia they want. But I cannot allow insurgent mobile suits to exist undetained within my borders without directing a fair amount of suspicion toward myself. Especially if one of them is a gundam. I trust your party will be on its way by nightfall, Captain?"

"Believe me, I do regret we can't be of more help to you and your men, Rashid," Ashman said when they had returned to the hangar. Despite what one might have expected from his brusque appearance, the prince's man did possess a refined subtlety and intelligence that inspired deep respect. They stepped around carts as they talked, over hoses snaking across the floor, avoiding those who busied themselves with the task of refueling carriers and transports. "But Faris is right. The risk is too great for us to do much else at this point. If we had the support of the other free States, he would be more willing to strike a bargain more favorable to both our parties. But as long as they are afraid to make a move. . . ."

Rashid grumbled his assent.

"With any luck," said Ashman, "time will eventually change that."

"If OZ's grip on Arabia doesn't become tighter yet."

"Yes. Although even that can have its advantages, if you know how to use them. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Who can predict the future?"

"Do you ever think of coming back?" Rashid asked him after a pause.

"You mean to the Corps?" Ashman nodded a little in thought. "I can't say the notion hasn't crossed my mind. From time to time."

"We could use a good man like you. A veteran. We had to leave quite a few back at Medina, many who gave their lives so we could escape."

"Are you, of all characters, saying the invitation is still open?" Ashman put a hand on a hip and let out a long sigh. "No, Rashid, I made up my mind long ago. You Maguanacs may not have found your place in the world yet, old friend, but I have, and that is beside Faris, protecting Arabia's legacy. The legacy of our forebears. The legal way."

"We have found our place."

"If you say so. Whatever it is, it's not mine."

For a brief moment, Rashid digested what he had been told. Then he said, "That may be true, but once you become family, you remain family until the day you die. Otherwise, if I had had my way, your name would have been scratched from the Corps' memory a decade ago."

Even though the captain did not, Ashman allowed himself a faint smile.

In the meantime, a group of young officers had gathered around the ramp of one of the carriers, vying for a good look at what was inside. "Is that Sandrock?" they said amongst themselves, not bothering to keep their voices down. "That thing is freakin' huge!"

"Check out the feet on that thing. Sure don't look regulation to me."

"Hey, can we come in?" one of them called inside. "Just for a quick peek?"

"No one's allowed in here!" Abdul shouted back over the noise from where he was hunched over a computer and its masses of wires. "I don't care if you do answer to Faris, I know a few kung fu moves and I will use them if pressed."

Finishing his check of the diagnostics from the ground, Quatre hopped up onto the chest of the prone gundam. Inside the cockpit, he brought Sandrock to life, checking as per routine to make sure the OS and each part of the body was running smoothly for their departure. Once again, it looked like there would be no time to tend to superficial wounds—meaning the damage his suit had sustained from the blue gundam would remain as it was for the time being.

When he sat the suit up, the young officers started to see the charred craters in its chest plates. "What the hell did that? I thought gundams were indestructible."

"Don't you fellas have something else you're supposed to be doing?" Auda asked them as he approached, arms crossed over his chest.

It was Rashid's presence that dispersed them in the end, however. "I suppose you've heard already," he said to Auda as he stepped inside the plane.

"Quatre's already filled us in on the gist," the other said nonchalantly as Abdul left his place to join them. "So, Prince Faris is turning the Maguanacs away. It's a sad day."

"You don't seem surprised."

"Yeah, well, frankly, sir, after the last twenty-four hours I'm a little hard to surprise."

"What's next, Boss?" said Abdul.

"I've been thinking, we might have the best chance if we split the Maguanacs up into five groups, six suits or so in each," Rashid told them. "We'll spread out, try to find someplace we might be able to use for a safe base of operations. Another city-state ideally, but that is a bridge we'll cross if and when we come to it. This mission is not going to be short, or easy." He glanced between them, saying in a lighter tone, "I take it you two ruffians have already decided which group you're going in."

Abdul grinned. "There's no way I'm letting Sandrock out of my sight."

"Are we that transparent?" put in Auda, his eyebrows rising in the center.

"Yes," Rashid said dryly. But there was something about his manner that seemed lighter than before. "We'll discuss the finer details once we can get the entire Corps together."

With that he dismissed them and went further into the carrier, toward where Sandrock sat upright on its transport. Seeing his captain approaching, Quatre leaped down from the suit. "How's Sandrock?" Rashid called up to him as he did so.

"The damage to the chest area looks a lot worse than it really is. Hasn't affected the integrity of the cockpit or anything. And the rest of him checks out fine. He's ready for transport."

"Good. I'm putting you in charge of one of the teams," Rashid said. And he was not surprised to see a smile instantly bloom on Quatre's face as he did so. "There are some cities I remember down to the south and east of here, back in the desert country, that had been fairly loud in voicing their disapproval of our helping OZ in the Alliance days. It's a long shot, but an 'I told you so' is a small price to pay if it turns out they can help us."

"Thank you, sir," Quatre said, beaming. By the look on his face, there was nothing more he needed to say.

"It's going to be risky nonetheless, traveling with a gundam in tow—"

"Absolutely. I understand completely. And I promise, I won't let you down, Rashid. I will find a safe harbor for us."

Rashid allowed himself a small smile then at the boy's enthusiasm, but it faded quickly, taking Quatre's with it. "You have a very trustworthy character, Quatre," Rashid said to him. "I know better than to doubt you. You have a strong sense of confidence within you that people notice and cling to. They believe what you have to say without feeling the need to question. Faris was impressed. The Maguanacs have all been impressed by it. Sometimes I think that alone is what keeps them from giving up when faced with such seemingly hopeless situations as this."

Not knowing quite what to say, Quatre breathed a second, simple, "Thank you, sir."

"But if you are not careful," the other continued in a lower tone, "people will believe what you say is true even when you're dead wrong. As they have me. And that is a very dangerous position to be in, Quatre."

For what seemed like a long moment, Quatre found he could say nothing. His initial uncertainty evaporated into an acute sense of shame at Rashid's displeasure as he remembered the blue gundam, and how he had not told Faris of its existence when it was his responsibility to do so. But was it really wrong to leave out some information? Skirting a subject was not the same as lying about it. Was it?

He nodded, but did not look at Rashid. "I understand."

—= o =—

It was just past one in the afternoon a couple days later when Walker arrived back at the Peacecraft estate. In the Sanq Kingdom colors, his uniform cleaned of Arabian dust the night before, and goggles resting on his forehead, he pulled up in his bike before the stairs that led up to the administration building's grand entrance. True to its founders' pacifist nature, there was no gate at the entrance to the circular drive, no intimidating mobile suits guarding the way to the door as they did at OZ government offices, or as they had under the tyrannical rule of the Alliance's brigadier general Daigo Onegel.

Upon entering, he arrived in a baroque rotunda, the roof of which was far over his head, the floor under his boots vermilion Syrian granite. At the moment, the building was fairly empty. A few of his fellow guards came and went, and a graying man dusted the moldings and reliefs that decorated the walls. For a moment Walker tried again to imagine what it would have looked like over a decade ago, in its heyday under the Peacecrafts—with royalty and servants and dignitaries coming and going, and, what one never saw in these halls nowadays, children. _She_ might have even chased a dog or a playmate over these tiles, long before she could remember.

During the days of the Alliance the estate had housed generals and bureaucrats eager to become politicians. Walker knew all too well how desperately Romefeller desired to gain control of the Sanq Kingdom, and with it the entire region of Cydonia, but they were not so foolish as to make the same mistakes the Alliance did years before, and risk becoming a villain in the public eye. It was a difficult thing to justify to the public, attacking a state that practiced total pacifism, and it was for that reason alone that for the time being, at Treize's insistence, they allowed Sanq its independence.

However, it also meant Relena, as daughter of the late king, and Walker, as captain of the guard, had to be perfect. So far she had lived up to everything he had expected of her, despite her own criticism, and her strength and vision gave him confidence, and renewed his faith in his decision. Over these past dozen or so months it became increasingly difficult to believe he had left anything of great importance behind, let alone to regret it. In the green hills and rocky islands of Cydonia he had found the peace so many longed for and thought impossible. Therefore it was his duty, practically a sacred one, to protect that peace at all costs.

It was with that mission at heart that he went to Relena's office now.

When he reached that room on the second level, he found the door open, and Relena sharing a midday tea with her mother. Or rather, with her foster mother, Walker remembered, but to Relena the woman was all the mother she could remember having. He could not hear their conversation, but was reluctant to disturb the untroubled peace on Relena's face as she laughed lightly at something that was said.

When he rapped his knuckles softly on the door, her mother turned, and it was impossible to find the resemblance between the two uncanny. The dark blond hair they both shared, as they did those gentle blue eyes, which relaxed when they recognized him. "I'll leave you now," the elder of the two women said to her daughter, unfolding herself gracefully from the davenport on which they sat. "No doubt you have important business to discuss."

"Thank you, Mother," Relena said, and rose herself.

As her mother passed Walker she said nothing, but an appreciative look came into her eyes that she directed at him. He returned the gesture with a short bow of his head.

"Please, come in," Relena called to him as she went to the large wooden desk before the windows.

"Sorry to interrupt, Miss Relena," he said quickly, removing his cap and closing the doors behind him.

She smiled. "Don't apologize, Walker. I was looking forward to talking with you ever since I received your call this morning. I was starting to get a little anxious when you were gone so long without word."

"About that . . ." He ran a free hand through his thick, straight hair. "Some other things turned up that I thought it would be best to pursue further. That's the only reason I was gone longer than expected."

Relena's curiosity was clearly piqued. "What other things? Trouble?"

"Not for me," he said slowly. "For the subject. But first things first."

He pulled the portfolio he had been carrying from under his left arm and extended it to Relena.

"So you do have information for me," she said, reaching for it and settling back in the seat. He remained standing.

"Right," he said as she began to examine the glossies inside. "I was finally able to track him down, and now I have pictures to prove it. It _does_ exist. The gundam. Sandrock, to be exact. The one I'd been hearing a lot of in Meridiani's chatter."

"So it isn't the one I saw in Alexandretta," Relena said. But there was no criticism in her tone of voice, only the slightest hint she had expected to be disappointed and was. She continued to glance through the photos.

Walker raised his eyebrows and looked down briefly.

"No. It looks as though that guy hasn't surfaced on this side of the water yet."

"Did you figure out where this, ah . . . Sandrock came from?"

"That's where it gets tricky," Walker told her. "According to Order transcripts, based on patterns in the locations of skirmishes, the Maguanacs' base of operations had been more or less narrowed down to Medina. It's a relatively small city, and there hasn't been any concrete proof yet, but the authorities are banking on a connection with the irrigation tunnels the Pioneers supposedly excavated under the city. I was also able to find out that some in the Arab Bureau believe the gundam to be a relatively recent acquisition by the mercenaries, and that their captain is the pilot, one Rashid Qurama. He was a hero in the revolt against the Alliance four years ago. That must be how they come to that conclusion."

Some note of skepticism in his voice led Relena to look up from the reports and ask, "And you don't believe that to be true."

"No, I don't."

Walker came over to stand beside her chair, explaining as he did so, "My observations prove the pilot isn't their captain, unless their leadership has changed. In any case, it isn't Rashid. It's that boy in those photographs. May I?" With precise movements, he turned the photographs over until he came to the ones he wanted, extracting one so that she could see it better in the light. Relena examined the pictures with deep interest as he did so. "I don't know who he is, but his skills are amazing. I saw him again in the street in Medina. He doesn't exactly blend in there. That must be proof the mercenaries were nearby, if not directly connected."

He recalled the way the gundam pilot had looked at him, as though he knew Walker had discovered his secret. And perhaps, in hindsight, Walker should not have drawn attention to himself by staring so openly. But that could no longer be helped.

"He's just a teenager, though," Relena said, then raised her face to look at him. "He can't be any older than I am. What is he doing with the mercenaries?"

"That's exactly what I've been wondering."

"Were you able to make contact with any of them?"

"I wouldn't have been able to without blowing my cover. An OZ convoy en route to Cassini arrived before I could even get there. Fortunately I had thought to bring my old uniform and was able to blend in."

"Cassini is occupied by OZ, now, isn't it?"

"Right. I wasn't able to get close enough to their colonel, but I still learned a lot from eavesdropping. They set up explosives around the city, meanwhile pretending to be in desperate need of supplies, hoping to use the opportunity to snoop around for the mercenaries' base. Needless to say, OZ got them out of their hole, but the mercenaries' took off with the gundam. Though not before they took a sizable chunk out of the Arab Bureau's Aries unit."

"And you don't know where they took the gundam?"

"The carriers were headed south, but there's nothing south that I can imagine would be hospitable to them. And OZ controls much of Arabia's eastern territory; I doubt they would take the risk so soon after battle. I would venture a guess they turned around and headed north. The Deuteronilus Coast is still independent. They might have found a warm reception in Jiddah or New Mecca."

Relena hummed in response to the new information, processing it all without a word as she studied the photographs with a serious face, her chin in her hand.

"There was another one," Walker ventured after a minute, "I was only able to get a couple partial pictures of, and I regret they aren't very clear."

Relena looked up hopefully. "The winged gundam?"

"I have some guys working on that, but as far as I know it's not one the higher-ups knows about. A blue gundam, designed primarily for bombardment. He could be working for OZ—he came in behind a division of Leos and Tragos—and even though it doesn't seem likely, if it were one of theirs, it sure is something they would try to keep hush-hush. Which might explain why we haven't heard anything."

"So, what do we do if it turns out OZ has a gundam?"

Walker looked down at the top of the desk for a moment, and that expression told Relena everything that she already knew but was hesitant to say aloud.

"I don't know," he told her, meeting her gaze. "But it's safe to say Sanq would never stand a chance against a machine like that with the defenses it has now."

—= o =—

The days passed slowly and the nights too quick on the road, and it had already been some days since Quatre and his team parted from Rashid and the other Maguanacs.

True to the captain's word, they had split into five parties, one of which decided to venture east, nearer OZ-controlled territory, hoping against hope to find those there who might harbor more hostility toward the Order than fear and support the mercenaries' cause. One went west, following the chain of wealthy city-states that hugged the Deuteronilus Coast. The three other teams followed the Mamers River upstream and branched outward from there, Rashid's team among them heading southwest for the low desert, where such once-friendly townships as Gehon and Moab still coasted beneath the Order's radar.

As the caravan of transports carrying Quatre and his comrades—Auda and Abdul among them—journeyed west as well, they could not help lamenting how strategic Medina's location had truly been. Though the town stood almost directly between Meridiani and OZ's bases in Cassini, if one were to draw a straight line between the two territories, Medina's proximity to the plateau and the neutral Foundation beyond, whose autonomy even the old Alliance had reluctantly respected with an almost religious prudence, had been nothing short of a blessing for so long.

Now even the townships who had supported the Maguanacs in the past were reluctant to give them aid beyond what they needed to get them through the night and on to the next settlement. It seemed to many of the mercenaries like the end of an era. Word spread quickly ahead of them about the takeover of Medina, and it took no great stretch of the imagination to understand that if a town like that could fall, any could. These people who listened patiently to Quatre and his companions' proposal nevertheless enjoyed their freedom too much to risk falling under the Order's sphere of influence, and incurring Treize's wrath in the process. No, they said, it was better for all if the Maguanacs simply moved on. Which was not to say the ordinary person wanted the mercenaries and all they stood for to go away; he simply did not want to be responsible for their actions, and have the consequences of those actions fall upon his own head.

"Don't they understand," Quatre found himself saying to his comrades more and more each day—as their reluctant guests cleared the table after supper, as he and Maguanacs turned in for the night, as they rolled out of town—"that if everyone said the same thing, if everyone was afraid to stand up to the Order like this, then they might as well surrender now? Who do they think is going to fight for them? Do they sincerely believe their continued freedom here is something that can just be handed to them?"

He hesitated to say it aloud, but sometimes their stubbornness frustrated Quatre so much he did not think they deserved that freedom. Though God forbid he should ever abandon anyone to OZ without a fight; he still had a sacred duty to fulfill, as Sandrock's chosen pilot.

And even as his comrades, no less frustrated than he, shook their heads at him, the same old arguments rising to the tips of their tongues in the civilians' defense, even despite his own frustrated words, Quatre could not actually blame the settlements that one after another refused them aid. Though a part of him deep inside was incensed by what seemed like irrational cowardice, he understood all too well at the same time that the reason he had taken on the great mantle that was Sandrock was so that people such as these did not need to fight such battles themselves.

And yet, how are we supposed to protect you? With stones and harsh words?

That was the question he kept coming back to, that stuck in his mind like a bad dream and would not leave his thoughts in peace even after the last township had disappeared out of sight.

Still, they pressed on.

At Focas, their team cut south to Maggini, then continued west toward the coast. Always the rapid ascent of the nearer moon ahead of them made them wish their own progress could come faster. Bit by bit, the weathered landscape of Arabia's deserts, with their scraggly vegetation and dry pinnacles of crater rims, gave way to sage-covered hills where patches of irrigated farmland nestled between the stony shelves; and eventually the rusty earth was hidden completely by green downs whose lakes of rainwater supported vast orchards while dark strands of olive and cypress lined the hillsides. Each day's journey brought with it a new soreness from the road, and a new set of sights, until they realized with a sense of nostalgia that the marketplaces in the towns along the road and the people's dress had stopped being familiar long ago. Though there was no line to cross over, the difference between the Arabia they left behind and the region of Cydonia they had entered could be seen no clearer than in these scenes of daily life too often taken for granted.

Traffic increased on the increasingly cleaner highways, and on the roadside people stared at their caravan of mammoth trucks, their extra-wide beds heavy with loads that bulged strangely under their dusty tarps, with furrowed brows.

Quatre pulled his arm back inside the truck and turned to face the front as he said to Abdul, not without a bit of lament, "So, this is it, is it? The Maguanacs have been kicked out of Arabia. By a process of elimination."

To his surprise, Abdul gave a sly smile as he stared at the road ahead. "Nothing is final yet. Rashid and the other teams might be having better luck where they are. Just because none of the townships we passed through would offer their support, doesn't mean you can give up hope entirely."

But Quatre was not so optimistic. His group had had Sandrock with them, the hero of the Arabian States, and they had still failed to convince anyone. The contrast between his reception in the last few days and that last night in Medina could not have been clearer. Even a gundam like his was no match against the Order's brand of fear.

"Uh oh," Abdul said suddenly. He winced and Quatre turned to look at him. "There's a checkpoint up ahead."

A quick check of his handheld GPS brought Quatre no particular cause for alarm.

"We must be entering the territory of the Sanq Kingdom. It's a neutral state. The Order doesn't touch them. Besides, they have a policy of total pacifism. Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, but . . . Maybe I should turn around anyway." Abdul's eyes were unreadable behind his dark glasses, but the tightness of his grin broadcast to Quatre how tense he actually was. "They'll search the trucks," he said as though to himself. "They'll find the suits and that will be it. OZ will know where we are, what we're up to—"

"No, they won't," Quatre assured him, though he could not deny that he was somewhat anxious himself. "They'll have no reason to believe our cargo manifests are anything other than what they say they are. Just drive casual."

That failed to relieve any of the tension in Abdul's posture, however—he sat in the driver's seat as stiff as a scarecrow—and as if reading their minds, that was the moment Auda chose to call them over the radio.

"What do you think?" he asked the two of them. "Are we going through this one?"

"What choice do we have?" Quatre answered, going quickly for the handset. "If we turn around now, with all the trouble that will be, we'll only look suspicious." Besides, the Sanq guards would have no reason to doubt that they worked for anyone other than the construction company based in New Mecca that was their cover. Prince Faris had made sure of that, in the last extension of his good will he was willing to give the Maguanacs.

"I understand that," came Auda's uncertain voice, "but . . . We've been driving around Cydonian territory for the last two days, now, and all that's got me thinking, just where in God's good name do we expect to end up? We've always been the defenders of the Arab States. There's nothing for us here. And when we reach the coast. . . . What then? We just turn around and do this all over?"

Quatre's silence was the closest he would come at the moment to acquiescing his comrade had a good point. He had given little thought himself as to what they would do when faced with that reality; and now it seemed the coastline Auda spoke of, always such a distant thought back in the desert highlands they considered home, was not so far away after all. In light of that, there was little he could do for the moment but place his faith in destiny—which, unfortunately, he was not entirely sure he believed even existed.

In the end, Abdul had had little to be nervous about. Their trucks were waived through the checkpoint without much delay.

Though perhaps the officer who had opened the gate had stared a little too long in Quatre's direction. It was all Sandrock's pilot could do not to pull his cap down farther over his eyes and fair hair. But what were the chances, he reassured himself, of anyone from Sanq even hearing of Arabia's gundam? Cydonia had enough concerns of her own to be worried about the Arab States' affairs as well.

They were a nation with a proud history of neutrality, though not as old as the Foundations who traced their heritages back to the early days of the Pioneers. One river in the south was all that separated free Cydonia from the full brunt of the Order's naval might, and her people were well aware of it. They seemed a humble and generous people upon first glance, Quatre thought as he strolled the city streets with Abdul and Auda after securing their transports; but scratch the surface, and their fiercely independent spirit showed through in spades.

Such as when the jovial atmosphere on the patio of the outdoor cafe at which Quatre and his companions had taken lunch suddenly turned chilly, and the ensuing silence made the three look up to see what had caused the commotion.

A group of four OZ soldiers in uniform had wandered by the establishment looking for a place to sit down for lunch, but, under the icy stares of the locals, quickly decided to try their luck elsewhere. Though they wore standard issue pistols at their sides, the soldiers' wary glances made them seem every bit as young as they looked—perhaps as little as a year older than Quatre—and it seemed as though their number was more for protection than any sense of camaraderie between them.

Feeling safe beneath the awning, Quatre and his companions watched them openly. When the soldiers had gone, a few of the diners turned and spat onto the pavement, at which Abdul grinned as he said over his shoulder, "I guess we have one thing in common with these people. Seems OZ's no more welcome here than back home."

"Does the Order have some sort of deal with the Sanq Kingdom?" Quatre said. "I mean, I can understand how we can get away with treating them this way back home, but you'd think a nation so close to the Order's warships would be a little more . . ."

"Subtle in its criticism?" Abdul laughed.

"OZ wouldn't risk the rest of the world's disdain," Auda said to Quatre's dark look. "How would it look, attacking a country with no military to speak of, that practices a policy of total pacifism? Not only that, but a country they helped restore after the fall of the Alliance. It must be one hell of a bind. I remember back in the days under the Alliance, the Order had already been saying for years how strategic it would be to have the whole region of Cydonia under their command. Then they would control both sides of the sea."

But a new thought had occurred to Quatre as he stared down at the remnants of his after-meal coffee.

"Maybe they would support us."

He said this so quietly, Auda had to wonder if he imagined those words, and Abdul blinked behind his glasses as he turned back to his companions.

"Quatre, maybe you didn't hear him right," he said. "This nation follows the ideals of the Peacecraft dynasty to a tee. Total pacifism means no army, no navy," Abdul counted on his fingers, "and no military quarrels with other nations."

"So they would just allow themselves to be attacked and do nothing?"

"But the Order won't attack—"

"And you said all that's keeping them from doing that is the fear of public disdain?" Quatre looked from Abdul to Auda. "And what if they decide that's no longer sufficient as a deterrent? It hasn't stopped them before."

"You're missing the point." Auda kept his voice low. The news from Medina had made the papers and broadcasts this far west; none of them wanted to draw more attention to themselves than necessary at this point. "They're not about to risk what independence they've got by hiring a bunch of mercenaries, let alone a bunch of mercenaries who have been kicked out of their home turf and are on the run from the Order."

"But isn't it worth a try?"

Abdul and Auda's uneasy looks made Quatre tighten his lips in determination.

"All I'm saying," he rephrased, "is that we should test the waters. If there's a sign that we might be welcomed here, even by a private party, I don't see why we shouldn't try and take advantage of it. You guys must agree, we have very little to lose at this point."

The other two would have argued that they still had plenty to lose—their suits and their lives, among other things—but each day on the road with no luck and no contact from Rashid or the other teams did not seem to bode well for the future of the Maguanacs.

They put those thoughts momentarily behind them, however, as they left the cafe to peruse the city's markets. Sanq benefited doubly from its fair climate and proximity to the sea, with a greater array of produce than the Maguanacs were used to back home, most of it fresh from the fields, as well as fish—a luxury in Medina. They bought mussels for a stew, in addition to everything else that soon weighed each of them down with a considerable load.

It was only when Abdul and Auda wandered off to look at one shop, claiming it was for a gift for Fatima and leaving Quatre alone, that Quatre had the distinct feeling that their passage through Sanq had not gone entirely unnoticed. In fact, it felt like they were being followed.

He had not managed to catch any sign that the Sanq guard who occasionally passed by were watching them, until he stopped by the booth of a woman selling wares of colorful, blown glass. It was a reflection glimpsed in a displayed platter that made him lean forward in curiosity.

As he pretended to study the piece, he noticed one of the khaki-uniformed Sanq guards stationed in a doorway on the other side of the street speaking into an earpiece. Come to think of it, he had spotted a lot more of them in the last hour than he had in all that morning.

The man's gaze did not seem turned his way, but it was enough to set Quatre on edge. When he rejoined Abdul and Auda to tell them of his suspicions, whatever petty debate they had been engaged in was dropped instantly. Auda reached for his communicator.

"Rigel," he spoke into it, but there seemed to be no answer.

With a dismissive shake of his head, he tried again.

"Rigel, this is Auda. Do you read me? We might have a situation here— _Rigel!_" He cursed. "He's not picking up. Probably just wandered away for a moment."

"Maybe it is nothing," Quatre agreed, more to reassure himself than anything, "but we'd better get back to the transports in any case."

"You three, stop where you are! Put your parcels down and your hands in the air!"

Quatre and his companions started as Sanq guards suddenly sprang from out of the crowd to surround them. They raised their rifles in the trio's direction, causing more than a few onlookers to shout out and shrink back in surprise. Not wanting to cause trouble for any of them let alone for himself, Quatre quickly did as he was told, placing the bags of groceries on the ground. Abdul and Auda followed suit a second later.

"Hey!" the latter grunted as one of his raised arms was abruptly twisted behind his back.

Quatre had hardly a second to glance over his shoulder before someone else was roughly turning him around and leading him none too gently toward the wall. It didn't even cross his mind not to obey; he could hear more than see the rifle clutched in the guard's other hand.

"You are under arrest," said the officer who had first spoken, silencing their protests as they were searched and their sidearms and identification taken from them, "for violating Sanq Kingdom constitutional law, as well as protocols covered under the one-nine-five treaty, by smuggling unlicensed mobile suits inside Sanq territory."

"Shit," Quatre heard Abdul mutter beside him, before Quatre himself was cuffed and pulled brusquely away from the wall.

But it was the anxious mutters of onlookers that shamed him more than being discovered by the Cydonian authorities. He could see any hope of gaining these people's trust vanishing before his eyes as they repeated those words among themselves like something foul—"_mobile suits_"—shaking their heads at best. At worst, gritting their teeth from shouting back, their eyes hard with a sudden revulsion and hatred toward Quatre and his companions.

The only thing he dreaded more was being outed as the same rebels who had escaped the Order in Medina. But if he was more than willing to advertise the existence of their suits, why was the officer not mentioning their identity among their crimes?

"Under orders of Princess Relena Peacecraft, you are to be taken into custody and your suits and transports confiscated," the officer said, and Quatre's hopes sank even further. "Will you cooperate peaceably?"

The three didn't see what choice they had, as they were driven away by the armed guard, their hands cuffed behind their backs and only means of fighting back taken from their persons. Quatre tried not to look at the faces of the townsfolk they passed, instead willing his thoughts to focus on the predicament that lay ahead. Though the thought terrified Quatre, he would have to be prepared in the event that the great and neutral Sanq Kingdom might be all too willing to turn him and his comrades over to the Order for political gain, and with them Sandrock.

Not that it would have been a stretch for them to do so. What better way for the Sanq Kingdom to cement themselves in OZ's good graces once and for all than to hand them one of their greatest opposers on a silver platter?

When Quatre and his companions arrived at the guards' station, they were placed in a plain room, the doors closed heavily behind them. Whether they were locked in or not, Quatre did not know, but he dared not risk trying to outmatch the guards that no doubt waited on the other side either, let alone unarmed as he was. He had never particularly liked carrying a pistol, but now that it had been taken from him, he was startled to find how naked he felt without its weight.

The room around them was drab, but windows high on the wall showed a blue coastal sky. A fan mounted on the ceiling threw a flickering shadow on the table around which they stood each time the blade passed in front of the light. It was quiet. None of the three spoke, or sat, though it must have passed through each of their minds to come up with a plan of action. Quatre knew his companions were preoccupied worrying about the fate of their suits and the rest of their comrades who had been left with them, same as Quatre. A look passed between Auda and Abdul, between them and Quatre, and between Quatre and the door.

Presently, it opened, and a young man in Sanq uniform entered, different from the officer who had arrested them on the streets, and flanked by two guards easily ten years older than him.

"You can call me Walker," the young man said.

He was a man of no extraordinary stature, no extraordinary features except for a stray-dog scruffiness about him that could not be pinned down to any one trait; but, if nothing else, the way he was regarded by the two men accompanying him indicated he was the one in charge. His thick, straight, drab brown hair lay back like the feathers on a predatory bird's neck. He wore the uniform like it was not his own—like something borrowed and temporary, neither the colors nor the buttoned-up shirt sleeves quite fitting his person. His eyes were at once wide and sharp and vibrant and tired, overshadowed by thick brows, his tapered face as difficult to put a place to as his faintly curling accent:

"I'm the captain of the Sanq Kingdom guard and special advisor to the reigning princess Relena Peacecraft. And, because under the Sanq Kingdom constitution the entry of unauthorized weapons and mobile suit technology into the borders is strictly forbidden, I think you will agree our actions in placing you under arrest were well-warranted."

To his audience's stony silence, Walker withdrew from a folder under his arm their confiscated passports and placed them on the metal table before him. "Your mobile suits have not been tampered with in any way and are being held in a secure location for if and when you are allowed to depart from our country. If you want them back, then I suggest you cooperate—and the sooner you do, the easier you will make your situation for all of us."

"What kind of cooperation did you have in mind," said Abdul, arms folded over his chest.

Walker sat, tenting his hands on the table before him as he gazed up at them. "Just some simple information. That's all I ask."

"What kind of information?" Auda said uncertainly.

"Well, for starters what a bunch of insurgent mobile suit pilots impersonating movers for an Arabian construction company were doing in Cydonia. We checked your alibi," Walker said, indicating the company uniforms they wore, "and, with the exception of the suits on your trucks' beds, it's rock solid. I'm impressed. Whoever set it up is extremely well-connected. But that doesn't change the fact that it is all a complete sham. Now. We all know what you really are, and what you're really carrying. I'm deeply interested in learning what exactly your motives in our country are. But, please, have a seat."

No one moved despite his welcoming gesture.

"You don't have to tell him anything," Quatre said.

Walker's gaze turned to him.

"He's a Special," Sandrock's pilot continued. "This is only a cover. No doubt he only wants to use our sympathy for Sanq to weedle secrets out of us—secrets he'll only turn around and sell to OZ. That's who he's really working for."

Quatre met Walker's eyes, openly inviting him with that stare to challenge his accusation. It was as though the feelings of that night when they saw one another in passing for the first time, the frustration and regret and ire of that night the Maguanacs were chased from Medina, all came flooding back at that simple look.

And now they had a target. "I saw him that night, in Medina, among Colonel Waltfeld's men."

"I don't deny that," Walker said calmly.

"Then what's an Ozzie dog doing in Sanq? I was under the impression it was still a neutral country."

"It is. However, I haven't been in Order uniform in almost a year. With the exception of last week in Medina, of course. _That_ was a cover."

"And what evidence of that do we have to believe you, Captain Walker, other than your word?"

"None," Walker told him point-blank. If he took any offense to Quatre's tone of voice he did not show it. "I have to take it on faith that you will trust what I tell you is true. You're wanted men. If I wanted to turn you in to the Order, I would have plenty of information to do so with already. You could bet on that. Whether you choose to believe me or not, I don't see that any of you have much of a choice but to cooperate, Quatre Raberba. Or should I call you Sandrock?"

Quatre smiled and leaned back, standing up straight. "What makes you think I'm Sandrock?" he said.

"Aside from the gundam in my hangar?"

"The pilot could be any of us." He did not appreciate Walker's sarcasm. "Why me?"

"You're different from all the others," Walker said. "Like it not, you stand out. So does a gundam. Of course, these helped my men identify you on the street."

As he said so, he removed from his documents a few enlarged photographs of Sandrock from the battlefield at Wadi Saffra, and of Quatre emerging from it.

Quatre stared at his tiny figure in the glossies, and at his own squinting profile.

"What's the meaning of . . ."

"At the princess's request, I've been following Sandrock's exploits for a while," Walker told him, fixing him with his hawk-like gaze, "and I must admit, you haven't made it easy. When the Maguanac Corp was forced to leave Medina with Sandrock in tow, I had my men alert me if you should ever try to enter our nation's borders. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting you so soon. But as fortune would have it, you drove right into our borders, where the princess's men identified you immediately. Then, as per my orders, they allowed you to pass into Sanq territory with your cargo intact—"

"This is entrapment!" Abdul said.

Walker merely turned to him with a patient look as though to ask if that were all. "I wanted to see what you would do," he said to Quatre.

"Then does the princess have any idea we're even here?"

"I've informed her I've taken you into custody." Here Walker smiled again; but it was with some delay, as though he were surprised to have been caught out in a ruse. "She's very eager to meet you three. But especially you, Quatre."

"Why is Sanq so interested in me?" Quatre said.

"Because!" The young man nearly laughed, startling the other guards behind him. "You're _Sandrock_. For years now everyone's been talking about these advanced MS called gundams, ever since they suddenly reappeared on OZ's radar, but I know of no one in this part of the world who has done battle with one and lived. So, naturally, that suit of yours fascinates me. Its sheer superiority fascinates me—in speed, strength, agility, defense. . . . It must have an OS like . . . like nothing OZ has ever seen. To say nothing of the kind of person it must take to pilot one of those monsters remotely well."

Walker's glance dropped to the photograph of Quatre on his cockpit's hatch. He tapped it absently with the tip of his finger before looking up again.

"And you not only pilot it well, you've mastered it. The Order speaks of you and that machine like you were one entity—mind and mobile technology blended into some kind of mechanized monster; and to hear the Arabs talk, it's like they've found some long-awaited messiah. At least, that was until Sandrock was chased out of Medina."

Something in the way Walker said that last part seemed almost meant to bait Quatre. There was a truth to it, however, that made Sandrock's pilot lower his eyes and clench his jaw in memory of that night, and the low blows OZ had used to achieve their victory—if it could even be called a victory.

"I wouldn't say we were chased out, sir," Quatre said in a low voice.

Walker's gaze softened somewhat at that. He pushed the chair opposite himself away from the table with the tip of his shoe. "Then, by all means." All traces of sarcasm vanished from his voice and demeanor. "I would be honored to hear your side of the events of that night."

Quatre took the back of the chair in hand and slowly sat down, but there was still a glimmer of distrust in his eyes when they met Walker's across the table.

"If you were there," he began, "then you must have known about the bombs they planted around the city, where they could have maimed or killed any civilian." Remembering the personal fears some of the townsfolk had brought to him in the underground hangar just made it that much more difficult for Quatre to recall the events objectively. If anything, the time that had passed only solidified his feelings. "It was an honorable sacrifice we made, to leave rather than put the people we had sworn to protect at greater risk. We had no other choice, after what happened in the Hiddekel—well, you know. You were there, apparently, taking those pictures of us. We didn't run with our tails between our legs. It was OZ that should be ashamed of themselves! It was a rotten trick, what they pulled, the lowest of the low—to think how many could have been killed if we hadn't found the bombs—"

"But the only casualties of that night were among OZ's Specials and your Maguanac comrades. It seems to me the Colonel made sure of that from the beginning."

Quatre paused at the interruption. "You think that makes it all right?"

"No." Walker shook his head slightly. "If I did, would I be fit to call myself an officer of Sanq? OZ's tactics have changed considerably since I was a Special. Or, perhaps it's better to say they haven't changed with the times. Back then, there was a tyranny to fight, and we were revolutionaries. The lengths we went to were appropriate considering the foe we were up against."

"Now OZ has become the tyrant," Abdul said icily over Quatre's shoulder.

Nor could Quatre say that those words, or something to the same effect, had not been on the tip of his tongue as well. It garnered a wary glance from Walker, however, before he returned his gaze to Quatre, the only one of the three in whom he seemed truly interested.

Then again, perhaps it had not been as wary a look as Quatre was led to believe; but he hated that this Walker character was so difficult to read.

"So," he said, "you left the people under your protection to fend for itself because it was safer than endangering them further with your presence, panicked, and, as far as I've been able to gather, hightailed it to the Deuteronilus Coast, hoping to hide behind its money. Did Jiddah turn you out, or was it New Mecca—"

"I think we've said enough," Quatre said. "Anything else, I would feel much more comfortable saying to Princess Relena herself."

Walker smiled at that. "I understand."

He pushed himself away from the table, gathering up the documents he had spread out before them. If he was disappointed he would not get anything else from Quatre at that time, he hid it extremely well. "You've been on the road for days, and my men and I have not been the most hospitable. We'll see if you're any more willing to trust us once you've had some time to settle in. In the meantime, please rest assured I will have the best detail kept on your suits."

Walker turned his back on them to leave, leaving Quatre and his companions as mystified as to his intentions as before. They seemed contradictory: on the one hand, he threatened them with the prospect of being turned over to OZ, while in the next breath he spoke of them "settling in," as though they were honored guests. Likewise, Quatre could not tell for the life of him whether the man was being utterly sincere or mocking him.

Case in point, Walker paused in the doorway to turn to them and say, "I'm looking forward to our next chance to talk, Quatre Raberba."

—= o =—

Some hours later found that young officer at the open doors to the palace's dining room. A fire crackled from within, and beneath that, the gentle, murmured conversation of the room's occupants could just be heard.

The long table had been set for three. Relena sat at the center of one side. Pagan, her elderly chauffeur, sat two chairs down, and her mother, at the end on her other side. Rarely did Walker find himself a part of this arrangement, and it was not for lack of trying on Relena's part. Perhaps it was her yearning for the company of someone nearer her age that was behind Relena's frequent invitations. Yet she understood, if reluctantly, that even now he felt more comfortable eating with his men—or else alone, like he had this evening, though he barely remembered to do even that.

His thoughts had been too preoccupied with Sandrock's pilot, even after the boy had been secured in his quarters. It was the problem of what to do with him and his suit now that weighed so heavily upon Walker, for the solution he sought was in no way easy for either of them, and yet he could find no other solution suitable to their particular problem.

Walker took a breath and rapped his knuckles softly on the open door. "Sorry to intrude, Miss Relena."

From her place at the long table, the young woman in question looked up. Her eyes filled with a hundred questions waiting to be asked as they met his.

"Ah, Captain Walker." It was Pagan who spoke, rising to his feet to welcome the newcomer, and Walker was secretly thankful for an excuse to look somewhere else. "We've been wondering if you would join us this evening."

Walker managed a smile. "Thank you, but I've already eaten. I'm sorry that I did not get word back to you sooner, but it took a while to move the detainees' mobile suits safely—"

"Then they're secured?" Relena said. She put down her knife and fork and ignored the half-eaten meal in front of her. "Somewhere where civilians and the Order cannot find them?"

"As are the rebel mercenaries who brought them into the country. I've arranged rooms for them in the north wing. They're under heavy guard, and probably receiving their dinners as we speak. I thought you would approve, Miss Relena, that as long as it appears to the Order that we are taking all necessary precautions, there really is no reason to treat these men as criminals if we are to uphold our record of neutrality. After all, we _do_ have a common enemy—"

"And that warrants treating fugitives like diplomats," Relena said softly to herself.

Walker could not tell whether she disapproved of his decision, or of herself for agreeing with it.

"Ma'am," he said with a suddenness that startled the others at the table. "I request permission to speak with you further on this matter in private."

"Of course." Relena exchanged glances with her mother. "I was finished anyway. . . ."

Dabbing the corner of her mouth a final time, the young woman excused herself from the table. She led Walker to a sitting room off of the same hall, where their voices could be muffled by the long shelves of books in addition to the heavy wooden doors. There were several chairs arranged before the empty fireplace, but she chose not to sit, too eager was she to hear what the captain of her guard had to tell her about the gundam that had made its way into her nation's borders.

Walker took her through his afternoon with the gundam's pilot, how the boy and his comrades had been arrested on the street, and what he was able to gather from their current situation before the boy insisted on any other questions being directed to him by Relena herself. He sensed she already knew what had been at the fore of his mind since then, that her interest in the gundam and its pilot was not nearly as great as Walker continued to propound, and not nearly as great as his own.

Yet she weighed all he had to say with a quiet contemplation that seemed somewhat incongruous with her sixteen-year-old frame. Her fair face was still rounded with that inescapable plumpness of youth, and the honey-blond hair that fell over her shoulders and the clarity of her dark blue eyes still possessed something of a young girl's innocence even in conversations of such gravity as this. Fewer than two years had passed since her father was assassinated—only little more than a year since she had learned of her birth parents and the singular place they had held in the earlier days of the Alliance-dominated world-sphere—but she was already assuming the role of the politician in his absence, not only in her words but in the carriage she adopted and this more grown-up style of dress. It saddened Walker in a distant sort of way to see in how short a time she had been reshaped by the tragedy around her, and yet—though he had not known her for very long—if anything he only admired the changes more.

Even if that meant it was harder to keep secrets from his charge. Then again, perhaps Relena had always been skilled at catching people out in their dishonesty.

He must have made it obvious enough he was holding something back as he spoke, because when he had finished with this narrative, Relena asked him, "Is there something else on your mind, Mr Walker?"

"As a matter of fact, it concerns Sandrock's pilot personally," Walker told her after a pause. There was no easy way to say what he wished to, so he dove right in. "I've decided to make him a deal."

Relena narrowed her eyes. "What kind of deal?"

"I've left him with the impression that we could turn him and his suit over to the Order if he doesn't comply—"

"But we would never do such a thing," she said quickly. "I mean, yes, they've put us in quite a bind. I'm half expecting the Order to accuse us of harboring terrorists if word of their treatment here gets out. But handing them over—that goes against the ideals of this nation—"

"But they don't know that." It was Walker's turn to interrupt. "The Maguanacs are wanted men, to say nothing of that Sandrock. They know just what a catch they would be for the Order, and as long as they believe that we wouldn't hesitate to turn them over—for the safety of our own nation, shall we say—they have no choice but to listen carefully to our demands."

Relena lowered her eyes, and Walker could not keep the words from slipping out.

"I would like your permission to propose to Sandrock's pilot that he work for us. For the Sanq Kingdom."

Just as he expected, Relena's eyes flew open at that, and it was not without some irritation. "Are you mad? I just told you that handing them over to OZ would violate this nation's ideals. You don't think hiring the lot would somehow be better, do you? My father—_both_ of my fathers, Walker, gave their lives for the cause of total pacifism—"

"And I understand," he was quick to say in his own defense, having anticipated just such a reaction, "that you feel if we aided these mercenaries now, let alone if we had them fight for our side, they will have died in vain. Believe me, I share the same concerns you do. And I know how it would look to the Order, that they would doubtless see such an action as hypocrisy—"

"And grounds for invasion?"

Walker let out a brief sigh. "Of course. That is always a possibility no matter what course of action we choose. But we must face the facts. The Order's navy is just on the other side of our borders. We've already had to put up with their so-called targeting and maneuvering exercises on the edges of Sanq territory, doing and saying nothing in retaliation while they flaunt their might in our citizens' faces. Romefeller speaks of their disapproval, but for all their talk do they ever lift a finger to punish OZ for their behavior? They've already shown plenty disregard for our perimeters—with impunity, I might add. How long will it be before they decide they can risk taking this country back under their wing? I tell you one thing, it won't be much longer if they think we're half as weak as we really are."

"But we _can't_ do anything," Relena said, and he noticed the edge of desperation in her voice, aware then that he had been raising his own. "We have no army, no navy of our own. We have to stand by our treaties: what good are promises, Mr Walker, if everyone is so quick to break them? And after all, it was the Order that was responsible for this country's liberation."

"Don't defend them on my account."

"I'm not. But I am saying that this peace we have is very delicate. I hate to think what would happen if we were to do the slightest thing that might tip that delicate balance too far in the wrong direction. We must not give the Order any grounds to think we are a danger that must be put down."

"But if the Order _does_ attack, Miss Relena. . . . That's all I'm asking. What does the Sanq Kingdom do then? You said it yourself: we have no way to defend ourselves against an attack. And just because we abide by our ideals and our promises, doesn't mean they will. Instead, it makes us that much weaker a target. So, do we just let ourselves be over-run?"

He turned his eyes momentarily, willing himself to cool his temper. This was Relena Darlian, heir to the Peacecraft dynasty, after all, and not the enemy. Her concerns were legitimate. In fact, they mirrored his own. Perhaps that was what got him so riled; neither of them could ignore the gaping holes in the arguments they so desperately wanted to believe.

"I know how the Specials think," Walker said in a lower voice. "They see the Sanq Kingdom as indebted to the Order for her freedom."

"And you seem to think the gundams are our ticket out of that supposed debt."

"Don't you?" He looked up. "You were the one who first suggested they might be on the side of right—that the world needed voices like theirs."

"Yes," Relena said with a shake of her head, "but I never meant we should fight beside them."

Walker mulled that over for a long moment before, realizing he was getting nowhere, he said instead: "Well, maybe things won't come to that. I'm going to challenge Sandrock's pilot to a duel."

The blood seemed to drain from Relena's face at those deadly words. "What?"

"I want to see what he can do. The only way I can do that is to face him myself on a level playing field, one-on-one. No distractions, no other factors. I have no reason to suspect the pilot will refuse, if he is the kind of man I believe him to be. Don't worry," Walker said quickly to her opening mouth, "I don't intend for him to take Sandrock into this battle. I already know what that suit is capable of. What I want to know now is whether the pilot is half as amazing as it is."

"Whatever would make you come up with such a silly thing?"

Despite her dismissive words, however, Walker could see that his idea had upset Relena by the way she hurriedly crossed the room, refusing to meet his eyes and grasping for some position among the furnishings more stable than that which she had occupied near the fireplace—as though being on his right rather than his left might make him change his mind. He put his elbow on the mantel, watching her. But could he really say that her reaction came as a surprise?

"It isn't silly," he said. "It's the only way I'll be satisfied. And it is the only way he will regain his freedom if I have anything to say about it, to say nothing of his honor—"

"I just hope you're not planning on dying," Relena said.

Her eyes flickered up to Walker's momentarily, and he read a veiled threat in it: if you get yourself killed out there, I'll murder you. It would have been almost comical, if the stakes were not so high.

"Not planning," he said. "But it's a possibility I must be prepared to face. Don't forget, I am first and foremost a soldier."

"I don't like this version of 'honor' you men have," said Relena. "I don't like the idea that two people who do such good should have to fight each other." A shiver ran through her anyone else would miss. But it made Walker uneasy. "Why can't you just let him go?"

"It's not that simple—" Walker started, then stopped himself. No matter how much logic he used to try and explain his reasons, ultimately he knew they were selfish. He shifted to a more comfortable position, though he was still uncomfortable.

"I don't like it either, but there is a higher system of rules at play here that neither of us can just ignore." He tried to be rational. He saw the fairness and the honor in what he had set his mind to, and the scientific worthiness of the struggle; but trying to convey that to a person like Relena, who—perhaps naively, but he did believe her heart was in the right place—saw all combat as a needless, barbaric waste of all that was precious, proved difficult to the point that even Walker was not too calmed by his own words.

"You never know what might happen," he tried, suddenly nonchalant. "I have a hunch about this guy, Miss Relena. You must trust me, that even though I'm putting my life on the line for this, it is a worthy cause, our struggle. You might not see it right away, but you will when this is all over. That is what I truly believe. Although, if I'm wrong . . ."

"Don't even say such—"

"He _is_ very talented," Walker insisted, "and I want you to give him a chance if anything should happen to me out there—a chance to do right by you like I've tried to these past months. No matter what happens, I'm comforted by the fact that at least I will have done my job, and you should be, too. I'm going into that fight one way or another for the soldiers of the future—"

"Don't say that!" Relena shouted then, surprising both of them. Then she looked down and away from him, no doubt embarrassed of her outburst. "My father used to say things like that," she began again in a softer voice, though not much softer, "and a lot of good it did him. Please, don't repeat to me OZ's lies, Walker."

"It's a realistic perspective to have—"

"It's a lie! I already lost one father to lies like that. I don't want to lose you as well."

She twisted the bow on her suit's waist nervously, before realizing the childishness of what she was doing and dropping her hands resolutely to her sides.

"I refuse to allow you to fight this man tomorrow," she said with the authoritative tone she almost never used with him. "Send him on his way. Tell him to leave Cydonia altogether and go back to the Arab States where he belongs. That's an order, Walker."

They stood in silence for a long moment after that, Relena waiting for him to say something—anything—Walker not wanting to say what he was most tempted to. At last he managed to whisper: "I can't. . . ."

"Why not? It can't be that difficult."

"But I just can't do that. I'm sorry."

"Then I shall just have to do it for you. I want you to arrange for me to speak with the gundam pilot first thing in the morning."

She made as if to hurry to the door, and, seeing his chance evaporating, Walker pushed himself away from the mantel to intercept her. On instinct it seemed, his arms moved of themselves as though to grab hold of Relena's arms, make her understand his point through osmosis if need be, but he stopped short of actually touching her. "Look, I can't . . ."

She stopped of her own accord, waiting for him to finish that thought.

Which was easier said than done, in Walker's opinion. "I can't explain it to you right now, but it is very important that I do this. All I can really do at this point is ask you to trust me. But I promise you, Relena, if I die, it will never be in vain."

It was a moment before he realized he had slipped and called her by her given name—just Relena; no title, no family name. If she caught the slip as well, she did not show any reaction one way or another. It was simply that in his sincerity, in his need to get his point across, the vow that he had made came back to him as strong and as fresh as the day he had made it, and in doing so forsaken his career as an OZ Special. He would protect Relena Darlian, the Peacecraft heir to the Sanq throne, with his life if need be; he would not hesitate to lay it down in her service.

But never in vain. Indeed, for her sake, he had every interest in staying alive.

Yet who could say what tomorrow may bring? And now he had given them both something else to worry about with its arrival. Relena was staring at him imploringly, a question forming on her lips that she couldn't seem to shape into words.

Walker broke eye contact and was begging her to excuse him before she could protest again. It would be a long night as things stood already, and he intended to spend the better half of it in lockdown with that magnificent suit.

—= o =—

Quatre awoke the next morning feeling better rested than he had in over a week, between the battle at Medina and the long nights on the road. For a moment, he had half a mind to believe he was still in his humble apartment in Medina and the past week and a half, nothing more than a dream, but for the call that woke him: a video message from Walker politely informing him that breakfast was being sent to his room and that he expected to see Quatre in an hour's time.

If that failed to convince him he had not been dreaming, his surroundings fairly sealed the deal. The room to which Quatre had been confined all night was in fact a spacious and richly-appointed suite, better suited to a visiting diplomat than an outlaw and prisoner such as himself. He found his own clothes, left bundled and wrinkled in his bag in Sandrock's transport, clean and pressed and laid out for him. The construction company's uniform in which he had been arrested the afternoon before was no exception; he could find no trace of the dust and grit of the road that had been building up in its fibers all week.

Which just meant Walker's men had gone through his personal effects. Quatre was not sure how he should feel about that. On the one hand, like his pistol and identification being stripped from him, it felt like a violation of his very person; on the other . . . he did not understand why he should receive such luxurious treatment, or why so much effort should be expended for his sake by his captors.

It was more than enough to make him suspicious of their motives.

Not that the Sanq guard were clandestine about their presence. In addition to the locked doors, the view of the sea from his suite's french doors was marred every now and then by the passing of the officers stationed just outside on the balcony. In the silence of the room, he could hear their easy banter as they enjoyed their cups of morning coffee—and could almost forget the rifles that were omnipresent at their sides.

Quatre washed his face after he had dressed in the adjoining powder room, straightening his hair with his fingers. As he fixed his appearance in the mirror, he wondered if Abdul and Auda had been given the same treatment as he; and he looked over his shoulder to the phone, wishing he knew where they were and that he could speak with them. Despite the richness of his surroundings, there was something about this room that nonetheless accomplished the same effect as a prison cell.

Presently a maid came with silver tray and bidding him good morning. If not for the pair of armed guards who accompanied her, Quatre might have felt like a prince. He took his breakfast and tea in solitude, hardly tasting the food at all; and when he had finished, the officers stationed outside accompanied him through the palace, taking him by motorcar to where Walker would be waiting for him.

The structure at which they arrived resembled nothing Quatre had expected. They stopped at a rocky stretch of land near the ocean, some distance from the city proper, where pale gray concrete buildings of massive scale sat clustered together in a military complex not only more modern than Sanq's government offices, but of much less traditional design as well. The building before their car in particular was a monstrosity with tall, slightly sloping sides that looked like something out of a textbook of ancient human history: like a ziggurat or a mastaba, solid, with slender reveals in the otherwise almost featureless walls. One could tell just by outward appearances they were thick: the walls of a fortress. But what a fortress was doing in the pacifist Sanq Kingdom was a question Quatre would have liked answered.

"It sort of makes a person feel small, doesn't it?"

Quatre recognized the voice as Walker's, and looking away from the massive walls, saw the young man walking toward them. He pulled gloves off his hands as he did so, and Sandrock's pilot could see faint smudges of grease on his clothing as he neared.

As though reading Quatre's thoughts on the structure, he continued, "Daigo Onegel constructed this complex after the Alliance took control of the Sanq Kingdom and placed him in charge, I guess in his attempt to seriously beef up the nation's defenses, make it into a leading military power. He had some, let's just say, eccentric ideas about how to go about doing that. Maybe he just wanted to rub his victory in the face of the late King Peacecraft. . . ." Walker shrugged slightly. "Well. Unfortunately the same operation that freed Sanq obliterated much of its defensive weaponry, and it's still something of an eyesore—not to mention a sore spot—for the people of this country; but we couldn't bring ourselves to tear it down. A lot of Sanq's own capital went into it. Plus, crippled though this base may be, it still serves its purpose."

"What purpose is that?" Quatre asked, climbing down from the car to take Walker's proffered hand. Even given his place in this nation as a captive and criminal, Quatre's manners were too ingrained for him to ignore the custom.

Walker smiled at him as they shook. "What other purpose could there be for a structure like this? Follow me."

He took the boy into the structure unaccompanied, his fellow officers following far behind and engaged in their own conversation—into the now nearly empty hallways through which every footstep echoed, and up an elevator the inside of which was polished like silver. Along the way, he made small talk, asking Quatre, "How do you feel this morning? I hope you're well-rested."

"Yes, thanks to the Sanq Kingdom's hospitality." Quatre's brows furrowed. "To be honest, I was surprised. Is this how the princess treats everyone who bring mobile suits into her city?"

"No. But, then, nobody's ever brought a gundam. I would have thought that a person who was capable enough of piloting a machine like that would consider it too great a risk, bringing an outlawed suit like that into a nation with policies like ours, with such a tenuous peace with the Order as ours, unless he was truly desperate."

"I guess one would just have to call his situation desperate, then," Quatre said, ignoring the slight if it was intended as such.

"Which I suppose is why Miss Relena saw fit to treat you like a guest. She doesn't feel any hostility toward someone who's able to pilot a gundam, because she knew you would not pose a significant threat. At least not to us."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because we are both oppressed by the Order, Sanq and your Maguanacs. And because, I suspect, our respective ideals are more similar than our pride will allow us to admit."

"What about Abdul and Auda?" Quatre said, eager to get off a subject he felt was cutting too close to the truth for his comfort. "Does she feel hostility toward them?"

Walker looked up toward the ceiling for a moment before answering ambiguously. "Your friends are well taken care of. The ones we found with your suits were taken into custody, but I've given orders for them not to be treated as criminals. For the time being, that is." He looked at Quatre. "That all depends on what you do."

"When do I get to see them again?"

"When you've fulfilled your part of the conditions of your release. I don't want them to interfere. If their feelings about you are like I think, they won't settle for this easily and might cause trouble."

The elevator stopped, and Walker stepped out first, Quatre calling behind him, "Wait a minute. Since when did we start negotiating the conditions of our release? What exactly are those supposed to entail—"

His words trailed off as his eyes focused on the scene in front of them. They were inside the inner ring of the mastaba-like structure, which he now saw contained an incredibly wide field, open to the elements. Its construction brought to mind a sports stadium, but there was no sport that needed as much room as this. Dozens of individual mobile suits could fit inside it, whole squadrons of Leos and Aries. The outlines of lifts that brought suits to and from some underground hangar could be seen in the level floor, only the small patches of grass that dotted the concrete seams giving any indication that the site had not been used to its full potential in many years. There were tiers in the walls above where officers could stand and address the assembled troops, or observe training exercises among pilots.

Presently on the field there were only two Leos surrounded by work crews, their skins a worn olive brown and scarred with silver scratches and the pockmarks of bullet wounds, but just their presence there was enough cause for alarm.

"Those . . . those are Leos!" Quatre exclaimed, starting.

"Yes. Isn't that obvious?" said Walker.

"But they shouldn't even be here! Sanq is a pacifist country. You said yourself you don't allow MS. . . ."

Then he shut his mouth. From little he knew of her, Quatre doubted that Relena Peacecraft would approve of this—if in fact she knew about it. He dared not voice that opinion, however, lest it open a whole new set of concerns he did not need weighing him down. He simply hoped there was a rational explanation.

"Sanq _is_ a pacifist country," Walker said soon enough, putting his hands on his hips. "There's no mistake about that."

"Then why does it have an army?"

"It doesn't. Although I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be perfectly within its rights to defend itself from attackers, do you?" An irritated expression briefly crossed his features, but it did not reach his calm voice. "These Leos were confiscated from the Alliance when the base was liberated by OZ. They haven't been used since. Miss Relena wouldn't allow it. In fact, she barely allows them to exist as is. She wishes we'd dismantle them."

"Even if the Order attacked?"

"I don't know." Walker let out a small sigh. "She sticks to her principles, and even though I don't always agree with them, I admire that about her. That's why I must protect her."

"Still, it's a foolish mindset for a leader of her country to have."

Walker turned to him. "How do you mean?"

"Well," Quatre began, unable to tear his eyes away from the suits as he did so, "if a nation were attacked, and found its very existence in peril, it would have a sovereign right to resist the enemy and protect its existence. For the sake of the people who call that nation home. They have a right to expect their government will protect them."

Walker said nothing in response, waiting for Quatre to continue.

"But on the other hand, it would look hypocritical if a nation claiming to practice total pacifism were to be found to be hiding something as destructive as mobile suits. That nation would be harder to trust thereafter. And its inability to be trusted might make other nations feel a need to protect themselves against a state with such volatile potential. What would result is an arms race, and where there are arms, there is the mentality that they exist to be used. So, in that sense, I can understand why she would disapprove. If I were in her position, it's the suits' potential to be used I would have a problem with, rather than the suits themselves."

"Huh." Walker studied the boy's face for a moment, turning his words over in his head. "I guess that's the response I should have expected from Sandrock's pilot."

He looked away again, raising his voice as though he hadn't said those last words. "Well, I guess we'd be in trouble then, if the Order ever did attack Sanq. These Leos are over thirty years old. Mind, I hear the gundams might be upwards of twenty, but gundams these are not. And it doesn't matter how good a shape Onegel kept them in; the Order gave up using this model a long time ago." Walker smiled wryly. "It would be suicide to take these suits into battle against a modern military. Even Treize, for all his renowned prowess with the Leo, wouldn't take the risk."

"Then why are those two out there?" Quatre said as he nodded toward the Leos.

He heard Walker hum beside him, and saw him shift out of the corner of his eye.

"They may be outdated, and they might not be my suit of choice on the battlefield, but I have a great deal of respect for the Leo. It's a great equalizer. No matter how skilled a pilot may be, no matter how quick his reaction time or how precise his control, he cannot exceed the limits placed upon him by the suit. Thus even a gundam pilot can be brought down to the level of an ordinary Leo pilot.

"In fact," Walker said on second thought, with a curious tone that made Quatre turn to him again, "in some ways the ordinary Leo pilot might have the advantage in a situation like that. Someone who has mastered the Leo's controls and knows just how long it takes for the suit to react to his commands might even be better matched against a gundam pilot, who's used to his own suit's high level of precision."

All in a rush it came to Quatre, where he was going with this line of talk. "You want me to fight in the Leo?"

Walker's expression sobered as he met the younger man's gaze. "I want you to fight me," he said, "in a duel. Leo against Leo. No live ammunition; just sabres and the suits themselves. Miss Relena would like to test your skills in a more objective setting, and beside that it will be interesting to see how well you adapt to a foreign suit."

Quatre backed up a step. "And why should I want to do that? I thought I was under arrest for mobile suit trafficking, and now you want to stick me in one? I'm not some guinea pig, you know."

That brought a renewed smile to Walker's lips. "Then consider it the ticket to you and your companions' freedom."

"But you said yourself fighting an actual battle in these suits would be suicide. Are you sure that's a risk you want to take with someone who's been branded by OZ a criminal?"

"Back at the Specials Academy," Walker simply said, "we had a way of settling disputes and grievances between two recruits. It involved a sword, and if you weren't serious in your conviction you ended up in the infirmary, or worse. I have made something of a wager about you, and I cannot afford to back out of it. Humor me, lose, and you and your friends might walk out of here free men—with your suits."

Quatre swore he must have heard wrong. "Lose and I gain my freedom?"

"That's correct."

A freedom which would mean nothing if Quatre were dead. "But if that's the case, what's to stop me from losing intentionally? What if I surrendered right now?"

Walker seemed to hold himself a little straighter before he answered. "Somehow I doubt it's in your character to do so."

Quatre was beginning to hate the other man's audacity—as well as his perceptiveness. He could not believe he was really as open a book as Walker made him seem. "What do I get if I win?"

"If you win, I can offer you an opportunity like no other. But it's a difficult road, that one—which is all the more reason why this exercise is so crucial. I have to know you're strong enough for it, that it's not just the suit that's made Sandrock so legendary."

He seemed reluctant to say more than that, which only made Quatre more wary. "And what if I choose not to humor you? What if I choose not to fight at all?"

"Sanq doesn't have the facilities for holding an MS of Sandrock's caliber. I'd hate to think we might have to dispose of it into the hands of a power more capable. . . ." For such a thinly veiled threat, Walker as though he were simply thinking aloud. "But neither of us wants that to happen. The fact of the matter is, you've done a very audacious thing, bringing that suit of yours into this country. If you have half the honor I think you do—half the honor someone who pilots that suit ought to—then you'll see this as the only righteous thing to do. The stakes are your freedom, versus my nation's honor."

And we are the cards to be played, Quatre thought. Walker did not give him time to consider. It seemed he knew how Quatre would decide before Quatre did.

And that irritated Sandrock's pilot to no end.

"I want to give you time to familiarize yourself with the Leo," Walker said, as though they were already agreed. "You won't be able to move it, of course, for purposes of security, but you can at least get yourself accustomed to its controls. It's only the gentlemanly thing for me to offer."

"I already have plenty of experience with these models," Quatre told him, but he did not refuse the offer either. "What do you think I trained in? No one could learn to pilot a gundam without any mobile suit experience. No one who's human, anyway."

"Of course not," Walker agreed. "It makes perfect sense to me that they would have started you out that way, considering that the Maguanac suit is based roughly on the Leo anyway."

He ignored Quatre's ensuing look of distrust. The man should have been an engineer rather than a Special, Quatre decided. Then perhaps his urge to examine strangers' mobile suits without their consent would simply be rude and not cause for actual alarm.

"But, again," Walker added as though as an after-thought, "I doubt your fellows had you taking decades'-old Leos into actual battle."

Whether his words were meant to goad Quatre, or were simply a statement of the facts, Quatre could not be sure. He already knew how he would decide, because it was in his nature—just as Walker had said. He would climb into the suit, undaunted by the antiquity of the Leo's cockpit. He would learn its ins and outs in no time; he had had to learn how to pilot Sandrock without any instruction, and he had taken to the gundam as though it had been made for him. He would not allow some Order suit to get the better of him.

He only prayed that he was making the right decision by accepting Walker's challenge, and not because he doubted his own skill. Rather, he feared the repercussions should the choice he made turn out to be the wrong one.

—= o =—

As the sun passed higher into the sky, and the nearer moon came and disappeared again behind the eastern wall of the stadium, the stands high on the walls began to fill. It did not surprise Quatre to see on the cockpit screen the tiny figures of soldiers in Sanq colors walking above, but the sight of civilians come from the city further inland did take him aback, even more so as their numbers increased.

Just what did Walker have in mind for this challenge he had issued, Quatre wondered. Did he really deem it necessary to risk civilians' lives by inviting them to witness this bout between the two of them? Come and see a real-live gundam pilot in action?

Either he was a more callous man than he appeared, or—and Quatre was firmly convinced of the latter—he knew the presence of innocent townspeople would only serve as another handicap against the Sandrock pilot. Suddenly his insistence on no live ammunition made much better sense. The open desert this was not, where there were only hoodoos and twisted, dried-out vegetation standing in harm's way. It was not just the risk of damage wide-flying live rounds would pose here, but the very real and present risk to human life.

Clever, Quatre thought with a curse under his breath. I might have to pull my punches—which must be exactly what he's counting on. And yet he has the gall to still say Leos are the great equalizer. . . .

A similar thought occurred to Relena as she stepped into the general's box and took in the sight before her: the two clunky, battle-scarred Leos on opposite ends of the field down below, and above them, around the rim of the complex, the stands filling up with her own people like bleachers at a ball game.

She could feel the tension in her mother's frame beside her, and Pagan's small cough seemed to possess a note of uncertainty. "Connect me to Captain Walker's suit," Relena told one of the guard who attended them.

The man depressed a button on the control panel before them, said, "Captain? Princess Relena to speak with you, sir," and a second later the face of the young man in question appeared on the monitor.

Walker saluted. He was not yet harnessed in—no doubt she had caught him in the middle of final preparations—but his goggles sat on his forehead and gloves were on his hands. For all appearances, he seemed ready for battle.

And for something else, Relena thought, but she dared not voice that thought.

She did not wait for him to speak. "Walker, you cannot tell me you're still serious about fighting that man. I beg you not to go through with this," she said, leaning over the control panel. "Please reconsider. I'm afraid this is going to turn into a public execution—"

"I intend to keep my blows away from Mr Raberba's cockpit."

"But I can't trust he'll do the same!"

In response, Walker's eyes only narrowed in thought, and it was enough to make Relena clench her jaw hard enough to make it ache. "If I must say it like this, then so be it. You're too valuable to me and to this nation to throw away your life in what, by your words, amounts to little more than a scientific experiment. And I don't want that gundam pilot to die either. I don't want him _here_, but nor can I have it on my hands if this duel puts an end to one of the few people who _can_ stand up to the Order's might. Can't we just let him be on his way and pretend he was never in Sanq to begin with?"

"You don't understand, Miss Relena—"

"Oh, I understand you two feel you have something to prove, something about honor, and for the life of me I can never understand why some more peaceful solution cannot be reached."

This went against everything her father stood for—her birth father, the late King Peacecraft, of whom she had only learned in the past couple of years since returning to the newly liberated Sanq Kingdom; and her adopted father, Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, whose daughter she still felt most like in her heart. Both had been assassinated for their beliefs in pacifism, one by the Alliance and the other by OZ, and it was in their memory that she had sworn she would not allow their deaths to have been in vain. She had made it her life's mission to uphold their ideals, and she had thought Walker shared that dream since the day he came to her.

And now he threatened to bring it all down in one fell swoop by these actions, everything her fathers had given their lives to build. And for what? Some masculine delusion of honor? As a test of skill and willpower—a test that put her fellow citizens' lives at risk?

"What if he turns on our people? Why are they even here in the first place?"

"The people have a right to see justice meted out when it concerns their nation's well-being—"

"You speak of their well-being and put them in the line of fire? They should not be here for this, Walker!"

A small smile touched the officer's lips then that to Relena seemed to fly in the face of the concerns she was trying so hard to impress upon him, as if he were taunting her to try and tear her people away from a good show. She knew in her heart, however, that he meant no disrespect to her by it; if anything, he meant the opposite.

"He won't do any such thing," he told her gently. "It isn't in his nature."

"How would you know?" When everything in her person told her this was a terrible idea? "Suddenly you're an expert on his character? The gundams are ruthless."

"Against OZ's forces. I can't speak for all of them, but this gundam's pilot plays by a higher set of standards than even the Specials' top officials. He fights for a sense of righteousness. That is what I've taken away from our discussions, that he believes he has a sacred duty as that Sandrock's pilot to protect human life, and to fight for those who are unable or unwilling to fight for themselves. Even if he hasn't said so in so many words, it's evident in everything he does. There is no doubt in my mind he would even lay down his own life if the people gathered here were threatened. No." Walter slowly shook his head. "He won't allow any of them to come to harm if he can help it."

"And if he tries to kill _you_?"

Relena could not phrase it any other way. She refused to believe that Walker could lose his life in his duel, even if he—in that strange way of his she could not for the life of her understand—seemed already to accept that as a possibility. Perhaps it was his defense mechanism, she thought, that smile when he spoke of the prospect of his own demise, just the same way her stubbornness not to believe it could happen was hers.

Still, she wanted to yell at him until he finally saw enough logic to stop this duel before it started.

"If it helps to put your mind at ease, I've rigged it so Mr Raberba's suit can be incapacitated remotely," Walker told her, as he flipped a few switches above his head out of frame. "Just in case I've been wrong about him this whole time and he does mean us harm, and in which case I'm putting a weapon of mass destruction into his hand. You'll see the device on the panel just to your right."

He met her eyes through the screen. "But I must ask you to use it only if it appears he intends to hurt yourself or the civilians," Walker emphasized. "I don't know what could happen with suits as old as these; the damage to structural integrity that would result might be enough to cause a collapse that could end up killing him. In any event, I leave that decision in your hands in case I don't make it through this, but—please, Miss Relena, I can't emphasize this enough—don't use it to avenge me. Vengeance only breeds more vengeance. If everyone took a life for a life, who would be left?"

A chill ran through the young woman's bones at those words. Her father the vice foreign minister had said those very words before. She wondered if Walker had borrowed them from that man—or, for that matter, if her father had borrowed them from someone who had inspired him to take the path that ultimately led to his death.

When she hesitated to respond, Walker saluted again. "I trust you'll make the right call, Princess."

And with that, he cut the picture transmission.

"Wait—" Relena snapped out of her indecision, but too late. "Walker!" She depressed the button she had seen the other officer using, and called for him again; but if her voice got through, he was ignoring her call.

Instead, it was Quatre who was alerted by the beep of an incoming transmission. He raised his eyes from the ancient controls to see Walker's face in the upper corner of his monitor. The young officer asked him, "Are you ready to do this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Quatre said calmly. His heart beat a little faster, and his naked hands felt warm and a little slippery on the controls; but the clarity of battle was already taking over his vision, making the seconds seem to pass like minutes, bringing every detail into sharp relief.

"At my signal," Walker continued, "my men will release the remote hold they have on your suit. You will power up and assume a battle-ready position. Your unit is wired for remote-activated emergency shut-down, and I've given Miss Relena authority to use it if she feels your behavior here poses a threat to either herself or our audience, so I must emphasize the importance of being aware of your surroundings at all times. As for myself—don't hold anything back. I want this to be a fair judge of your abilities, just as if it were live, mortal combat."

Strangely, his warnings did not faze Quatre's concentration in the least. He was not sure how he should feel knowing that, among other things, his life rested in the hands of this ex-Special and an adolescent princess. And the stakes were not just Quatre and his companions' freedom; it was Sandrock's reputation in the whole northeastern hemisphere that hung in the balance if he lost.

It was into those thoughts that Walker slipped a strangely amiable, "Do you feel comfortable with the controls?"

As if a negative reply might yet call this whole thing off.

Not wanting to give his opponent an advantage one way or another, Quatre replied an ambiguous, "I'll manage. If I were you, I'd just worry about myself, Mr Walker."

"Good advice," the other admitted. Then, over the structure's loudspeakers, he gave the command to his men: "All personnel, clear the field."

The order was repeated until word came back to Walker that he and the gundam pilot had the all-clear; there was no one on the ground but they two and their suits.

"Release remote lock of the Leos' power source."

Quatre did not see his fellows as they were led into a box similar to Relena's on the other side of the stadium. Abdul and Auda and the rest of their team stared mouths agape as their team leader's situation quickly became apparent to them without need of explanation. Auda shouted at the Sanq officers to stop the operation, and Abdul pounded on the bulletproof glass window for Quatre's attention, but it was all in vain.

Sandrock's pilot was focused on the machine that surrounded him, and on an officer's disembodied voice alerting him: "Leos released. You now have the all-clear to power up your suits."

Quatre's fingers obeyed with a life of their own, with the instinctual precision that had been hammered into him by his few but intense years in combat with Sandrock. His training at a Leo's controls came back to him as fresh as if it had taken place yesterday. The old reactor rumbled to life, the hum of electronics charging to full capacity filling his ears and resonating in his blood as the Leo came on-line. His hands slid comfortably around the twin sticks, his feet finding their place in the pedals. Like a man stretching after years of slumber, he felt the suit respond to his first, tentative movements: the flex of a mechanized hand, the hiss of an ankle piston as a heel lifted off the concrete.

Before him, Walker's suit unsheathed its beam sabre, the blade springing into existence with a flash of golden energy. He took a step toward the center of the field, assuming an en garde stance.

Quatre wasted no time pulling his own suit's sabre from its power dock. He could not afford to wait for the other to make a first move. Despite his skill with Sandrock, in these older model Leos with which he had had no practical experience, he was at a severe disadvantage. His best hope was to catch his opponent off his guard and gain an early offensive position.

He dashed forward, lunging with the sabre in hopes of landing an incapacitating stab.

However, the suit was considerably more sluggish than he had anticipated. Its run was more comparable to a trot, and Walker saw his move coming long before Quatre ever reached his suit. The gundam pilot was too slow in correcting his course, accustomed as he was to his own suit's rapid reaction time; and Walker sidestepped the brunt of his attack, guiding the sabre past his suit and out of harm's way with his own, and taking the brunt of the impact with Quatre's Leo on his shoulder.

Quatre was thrown against his harness as his suit came to a sudden and jarring stop. No doubt his opponent had suffered the same. The crunch of metal against metal echoed loudly even inside the cockpit. Quatre gritted his teeth at the effort it took just to keep his balance in the antiquated suit—and was ill-prepared when Walker shoved him away a second later.

The Leo stumbled backwards and braced itself upon the concrete, just milliseconds before Walker's blow caught it on what might have been the collarbone on a human. Quatre could feel the impact on the ceiling of his cockpit. The lights overhead and the images on his screen flickered but held. Yet somehow he managed to keep his footing. Walker forced him back with a slash of his beam sabre, and with a loud groan of steel and wire, Quatre lost ninety-percent of his control of the Leo's left arm.

And he had been in this game for less than a full minute.

He gritted his teeth, cheeks burning in shame and panic, lacking even the capacity to curse. This was not like him at all. The person piloting his Leo was like a stranger to him, clumsy and stupid, far removed from the Sandrock who tore through the ranks of Specials like a force of nature. He had been cocky, yes, but even still Quatre could hardly believe his poor performance. At this rate, he would be lucky if he just managed not to get himself killed.

He knew precisely where the problem lay: he and his Leo were not matching up. They were not fighting as one streamlined unit, and all because—just as Walker had warned—the Leo's reaction time was significantly slower than Quatre's. It did not respond like he expected it to—like he was used to. It lagged behind his maneuvers, ignoring what he wanted it to do, or else simply unable to comply. It did not bend and twist like Sandrock did in battle, like an organic thing, an extension of his body. It moved forward and back; it pivoted; it swayed on its feet and fought for every inch of ground Quatre gained. He knew then, if he did not change his own fighting style, he was lost.

Walker swung down again with the sabre, and this time Quatre's was there to meet it. In a crackle of ions, the opposing Leo's glowing blade stopped short of his own's armor. The elbow groaned its difficulty, and the shoulder joint protested, but with aching slowness Quatre managed to turn the tables. His left arm hung practically useless at his side, but he counterattacked with his right, and forced Walker on the defensive for the first time in this battle—just, Quatre thought as he chastised himself, as he should have done from the start.

He did not hear Walker's short laugh of surprise at the change, nor would he have believed that his opponent was actually pleased after a sorts to have the tables turned against him.

However, his precise blows that Walker considered himself almost lucky to parry came to the young officer with a queer sense of satisfaction. Whatever happened, he knew he was no longer to be disappointed. Nor was there any more need to pull his punches.

It meant Walker had been right all along—that, though the other's progress was gradual, Sandrock's pilot possessed the talent to adapt well to unfamiliar conditions just as he had predicted—and that meant he had not been mistaken in challenging Quatre to this duel.

However, it also meant that he would have to up the ante if he wanted to see just what the boy was capable of. He only hoped both of them would survive his doing so.

All around them, the civilians who had turned out to watch were shouting their encouragement to Walker over the din of battle, but neither pilot could hear them. Nor did they see those in the stands for anything but a mass that was to be avoided at all costs.

Rather than force his will onto his suit, which was not working, Quatre let himself become the Leo. It was like dancing in rhythm, however an awkward one, learning just when to make his move, just how fast and to what length he could take it. His movements were far from fluid, but they accomplished what they were meant to.

Nor could Quatre concern himself with style when Walker's attacks were becoming more frequent, and packing more force behind them. He dodged Quatre's high stab, dropping down and swinging a cut to the side right toward the cockpit of Quatre's Leo.

Sandrock's pilot blanched, before instinct kicked in and intercepted Walker's beam sabre with the Leo's left arm just in time.

This time it sheered off and fell to the ground with an awful crash. Had he been outside, Quatre would have heard their audience gasp and shout. Of course, had he been outside, he would not have been in this mortal peril. He growled inside his cockpit. It meant, then, that Walker intended to use every means at his disposal, and was not about to avoid targeting Quatre's cockpit in the process.

He only had one arm with which to fight now, but that knowledge only strengthened Quatre's resolve. Lose, Walker had said, and he would have his freedom; but it would be freedom in shame, if he survived it, knowing Sandrock's pilot had been defeated by a former Special on equal terms, in front of hundreds. Pressing on might endanger his life, but to Quatre that was a risk he was prepared to take. In any case, while he still had one arm to fight with, surrender was not an option. He would not give in until either the Leo or he had been completely incapacitated.

He thrust and parried with his remaining sword hand, pushing the old Leo to the limits of its capacity. He knew he was at a disadvantage when Walker, their sabres locked together, grabbed Quatre's arm with his free hand.

But even that could be used in Quatre's favor. He saw an opening, and did not hesitate to use it.

With Walker's suit virtually supporting his, Quatre leaned in closer and brought his suit's knee up as quick and with as much torque as he could. It slammed into the side of Walker's cockpit hatch, and his hold on Quatre's arm slackened. The boy followed it up with a kick outward, hitting Walker's Leo in its shin, and both their suits lost their balance as they were pushed away from one another.

Walker was able to recover from it, though his hands had slipped momentarily from his controls; but not as quickly as Quatre.

The boy's raised sword arm finally fell, and with its descent went Walker's right hand and beam rifle.

Within seconds, his left leg buckled beneath him as well from a severed joint; and as he fell backwards onto the other leg, he just witnessed Quatre's golden blade slicing the horizon before his screens went dead.

But he was still alive. And he would take blindness over death any day. "Suit's cameras are out," Walker shouted to his officers on the ground. "I can't see anything. Get me an outside feed!"

His suit's heads-up display flickered back to life a moment later, this time providing him with a view not from the Leo's perspective, but from the general's box where Relena sat watching. Then Walker could see where his problem lay. His Leo's head had been almost completely taken off. His suit sat folded back upon itself on the concrete, its weight supported by its remaining hand while its busted leg stretched outward at an odd angle. Smoke rose from its split skull, where the golden glass that was the suit's face had dulled and shattered and become a lifeless hole.

As he watched from this out-of-body viewpoint, Walker could see that nor was he out of this yet. Quatre's Leo, though in only somewhat better shape than his suit, stepped foward to claim its victory. As Walker watched, it came to a stop with his sabre lined up to run through his own Leo's cockpit; from his awkward perspective, it was difficult to believe, but the point of the beam was hovering just outside Walker's cockpit hatch.

A collective gasp echoed through the complex as bystanders waited with dread for Sandrock's pilot to finish their princess's man off. Only the Maguanacs in their box whooped in relief that it was not Quatre in his position, but it was not without an ounce of dread as to what might happen to them, as well as to Quatre, depending on what he now did.

Relena felt her heart skip inside her chest in fearful disbelief. She had barely managed to follow the gundam pilot's winning moves, and now the fate of the captain of her guard, and her dearest companion these past lonely months in Sanq, rested in the hands of that teenage boy. The button Walker had told her of rushed back to the fore of her mind. It sat on the console unguarded by any of her soldiers, tempting her. What did she care, she thought, if it did kill that gundam pilot in the process of disarming his suit? If it saved Walker, was that not worth it?

Was it worth the price of that young man's blood on her hands?

It was only that which stayed her in indecision. If she hesitated now, she might lose Walker to that gundam pilot. And if she pressed it . . . then there was a good chance she herself would become a murderer.

Unknown to her, the same thought was racing through Walker's mind as he held his breath, waiting for Sandrock's pilot to make his decision, unable to do anything else. Whatever happened now, he had lost fair and square to a superior opponent. He only prayed if anyone had to lose his life today, it not be that boy.

Quatre fought for each breath as he held his ground, and willed his racing heartbeat in vain to slow. His chest would be bruised from his repeatedly being thrown against the Leo's harness; he could already feel a tightness forming, though he doubted anything was broken. His palms felt as though they were veritably glued to the suit's controls, and the sweat stung his eyes as it dripped into them from his dampened hair. He had survived, and emerged victorious. That was the only thought running through his mind now—echoing in his mind with the pounding of his blood in his eardrums. He was vaguely aware of someone hailing him—Walker perhaps; he could not be certain—but he could hardly comprehend the words.

When he first climbed into the Leo's cockpit, a part of Quatre had wondered if even his grudging acceptance of the challenge was a decision that would change his and Sandrock's destiny for good. Perhaps it was written all along in Medina's fall and the Maguanacs' exodus from the Arab States: that what they needed they would no longer find among the scattered city-states of the Arabian continent.

And whether Quatre liked whatever path God had set them down was beside the point. He was here now, at that journey's end, at the start of another, for better or worse. He could no longer rely on some assumed cover to keep him from facing that reality. He was here now as Sandrock's pilot and nothing else, exposed before the people of a kingdom who should not have seen him as an enemy given their situations, and yet did. He stood before them as though naked, and humbled.

Quatre ignored whatever the soldier's voice in his radio was trying to tell him with greater urgency, and turned his suit to face the general's box where the princess of Sanq sat watching him. He shut off his sabre's beam and took a step in her direction—and saw her companions recoil in shock as he did so.

But Relena did not move. Her eyes widened against her will, the muscles tightening in her jaw, but she willed herself to remain just where she was. She was not afraid of Sandrock and his pilot. Sanq was not afraid of him.

Quatre planted both feet of the Leo firmly on the ground when he stood before her and opened the cockpit hatch. He threw off his harness and grabbed up the radio's handset, and stepped out into the noonday sunlight. For a moment it blinded him, having been exposed to nothing but the artificial light of the cockpit for much of the morning; and when his vision cleared he finally saw the people gathered around the rim of the complex, and heard for the first time their apprehensive chatter, their confused mix of jeers and applause. The acrid scent of burnt ozone assaulted his nostrils.

It would have been too easy to get caught up in the roar of the crowd, but it was Relena who demanded his attention. It was a strange feeling, to find the young woman he had until now only seen on television staring back at him with only empty space and a sheet of glass to separate them. Quatre marveled briefly at how she could appear so young and yet so completely in-command at the same time—unaware that she and the rest of the onlookers were thinking the same about him.

"Princess Relena Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom of Cydonia," Quatre began into his radio handset. The words simply came, from exactly where he neither knew nor cared. "As pilot of the gundam Sandrock, and victor in this duel, I have a couple of requests to ask of you."

The crowd around them was bustling again with anxious whispers. He could not make out any single words among the noise, but knew it was his identity as Sandrock's pilot that was the topic of it.

Relena shook herself out of her stare at his words, and leaned forward over the booth's controls. A moment later, her voice was broadcast throughout the entire stadium: "If it's your release, it's granted—as per the conditions of your duel."

"There are a few more as well, ma'am. I request an opportunity to speak with you properly, face to face."

"Granted. Of course." She was eager to speak with him as well.

Walker stretched his neck up to watch the tiny figure of the young man on the Leo cockpit hatch high over his head, as he climbed up out of his own Leo. Soldiers rushed out onto the tarmac below him, surrounding Quatre and his suit with their rifles ready at their sides; but they stood back when they caught sight of Walker above him, signaling them to hold their fire. After all, if his hunches were correct, they could not miss nor tamper with whatever happened next.

"There is one other thing I'd like to ask of you, ma'am."

It was a mad impulse that seized Quatre then, but he allowed himself to be carried away by it. It felt almost as though he were submitting to a higher will power as he dropped to one knee upon the cockpit hatch and lowered his head. His hand went to his heart, which he could feel hammering wildly beneath his fingers.

"I wish to pledge my services to your highness as Sandrock's pilot," he heard himself say. Somehow his voice rang strong, without a tremor. "I would like the opportunity, if Princess Relena would allow it, of defending the Sanq Kingdom from any force that would attack its sovereignty."

His humble request reminded Relena of a knight of eons ago, pledging himself to the lady for whom he had won the glory of victory.

And yet she found herself shrinking back in a sort of horror at his offer, because it seemed like one of Walker's outlandish prophecies come true before her eyes. Quatre's was the kind of request that should have been greeted with applause, but, hero though he was in the Arab States, few among the roaring crowd were showing any support. Most were wondering, as she was, from whence this proposal had come; others, disgusted at the mere idea of their nation supporting a gundam. It was, in a word, surreal.

Yet she wondered, could she, and her nation, afford not to take this young man up on his offer?

—= o =—

"I suppose there's no harm now in returning this."

The joyful reunion between Quatre and his Maguanac companions was nearing its end, the last congratulatory mussing of his hair petering away into relieved laughter as Walker spoke those words.

With something akin almost to reverence, he laid Quatre's confiscated sidearm on the reception room table, inviting the young man to pick it up. "I would have expected the pilot of a gundam to carry something with a little more style," he remarked with a slight, wry smile.

As Quatre returned his pistol to its place, he could not help noticing the other's own where it sat at his hip, a worn, wooden handle visible above the holster. "What do you carry?"

"Smith and Wesson forty-four Russian sixgun. From before even the Pioneers' time."

"And it still works?"

Walker's amused smile was all the answer Quatre needed.

He knit his brows in thought, not wanting to sound ungrateful. However, "Well, it wouldn't be my choice. It's not as precise as a laser pistol. Besides, the ammunition is barbaric and more expensive than it's worth."

"I happen to disagree," Walker said. "It just means every shot has to count."

Quatre hummed. He agreed with the last point, but did not see what the weapon itself had to do with it. "Then again, this is coming from a man who thought it wise to fight a gundam pilot in a thirty-year-old Leo."

"And held his own, I might add. Up until I was down a leg."

There, Quatre had to admit, he had a point. He extended his hand, and was not disappointed when Walker took it heartily in both of his. "I can joke about it now, perhaps out of gratitude for the fact that I'm still standing here, but it really was an immense honor doing battle with you, Quatre—a chance that not many would be able to boast they had, to duel with a gundam pilot and see, with one's own eyes, what kind of man lies behind the name and the suit. Nor was I disappointed. Now I can see why your friends here are so protective of you."

Again Quatre found that intense, hawk-like gaze trained upon him, and, combined this time with the adoring looks of his Maguanac companions, again it made him feel uncomfortable. His cheeks colored faintly. Not knowing what to say in response, feeling that even the most humble response would nevertheless sound pompous, Quatre chose to say nothing.

Nor did he have to, for the door opened then and Relena Peacecraft stepped into the room.

Abdul and the other Maguanacs, startled by her arrival and not sure how best to act in the Sanq princess's presence, snapped to attention.

Perhaps it was against custom, Quatre could not be sure, but he let his gratitude carry him forward with hand extended. "Miss Peacecraft, ma'am, it's a great honor to finally be able to speak with you."

Relena grasped his hand, and he remarked to himself how firm her grip was. In slight heels, she stood at almost the same height as he; and Quatre was so used to meeting officials years his elder that for a moment he was taken aback by how young she truly was despite her air of maturity and wisdom.

"Please, I prefer to go by Darlian in private," she said. "Or Relena, to my friends."

"Should I be so bold as to presume that you and I are on friendly terms now?"

To Quatre's skeptical look, Relena only held herself straighter. "I believe I'm right in saying you and I have no wish to be enemies. I think my captain said it best when he asked me to remember that we are both oppressed by the Order, the Sanq Kingdom and your Maguanacs. If I wished ill will against one who was fighting for the same rights as I was, well, then I would truly be a fool."

Quatre found himself bowing his head in gratitude. He would have felt presumptuous saying the same, and was secretly glad Relena had said it before he could.

"However," he began slowly, "that does not necessarily mean you would outwardly support such a person."

"It does not. While there's no law to keep you here or make us hand you over to OZ, wanted men though you may be, I'm sure you can understand that Sandrock and the Maguanacs are not exactly welcome here either." Quatre remembered the audience's reaction to his victory, to which she seemed to be referring in this round-about way. "It's not even that some of us fear your presence in our nation might invite unwanted attention from the Order. People here have had their fill of mobile suits, Mr Raberba."

"Please. Quatre."

Relena's smile warmed a touch at that, but she did not take his invitation just yet.

"Yes," he said quickly. "During Alliance control of this nation, I'm sure they must have. I'm not so young I can't remember it. But I disagree with the notion that mobile suits are the crux of the problem. Yes, they are an effective way of controlling a people. But they are and always will be just machines, when one gets down to things—mere tools wielded by those in charge whom people should really fear and oppose. We Maguanacs choose to fight in mobile suits because it's the only way we can see that stands a chance of combating the common enemy who wants to seize our freedoms out from under us."

"But isn't that simply fighting fire with fire? It gets us nowhere. It does nothing to put an end to the problem, and the increased demand in which it results only guarantees the machines of war continue to be in production."

"And with any hope, someday that will end. But in the meantime, don't we have a duty to our people to use the best tools available to us? Isn't there some honor in our piloting MS because we use our suits for good?"

"What's good for the Arabian continent is not necessarily good for Cydonia, Mr Raberba."

"You'll find that matters little when you're under attack."

"Excuse me, ma'am. Captain."

A new voice made them all turn their attention to the door, where a Sanq officer stood in salute. Quatre and Relena forgot the argument in which they had been so embroiled as Walker asked the man what he had come for.

"We're getting word from Oxus that the Order is preparing to enter our borders with mobile suits."

In an instant, Relena was all business. She forgot Quatre and strode to meet the officer. "An invasion?"

Walker seemed to know the answer to that before the other could answer.

"No, ma'am. They're claiming to have tracked the gundam Sandrock's position to our territory. They're bringing a small army to take him by force." The man sobered, as if the reality of their situation had just sunk in at those words. "They claim it's in our own interest they be able to apprehend him as soon as possible, and beg our cooperation. But, ma'am, it doesn't appear that they know we already have him here."

"This is just like the Order," Walker said under his breath. "I should have expected something like this . . ."

"I'll have to issue a statement," Relena said, and Quatre could hear the tremor lying just beneath her carefully composed voice—a tremor not of fear but of rage. "How dare they do this. . . . To a sovereign nation, no less. Do their own treaties mean nothing to them. . . ."

Guilt racked him all over again then. It was just like Medina. Once again the Order had followed him inside an independent power that meant it no harm and was existing peacefully, yet, like Medina, it was the people of that nation who would suffer as long as he remained there among them. In light of that, the timing of his arguments with Relena could not have been less appropriate.

"This is my fault." The words more or less slipped from him. "We'll have to flee, us Maguanacs. We can't expose your people to any more danger on our accounts. That is, if we're still free to leave with our suits."

"Of course." Relena seemed more upset that he would suggest they were not. "They have no right to demand your apprehension, and I certainly don't have any intention of turning you over after this stunt."

"Even if it means you'll be demonized as a harborer of insurgents?"

Relena's chest heaved while she searched for the appropriate words, and it took her aback when Walker forced a laugh.

"I thought you would have understood by now," he said to Quatre and his companions, "how stubborn the princess is about her ideals. It's them she's really protecting, not you. Therefore, there are no contradiction in her policies."

"I didn't think there were. I would feel the same way, if I hadn't already made my decision to fight long ago."

If Relena was displeased with the way they discussed her like she were not in the room, she did not show it. "Don't take the southern route," she told Quatre. "It will take you too close to Order territory. They might see it as a threat—issued by Sandrock or Sanq, I doubt they'll care to make the distinction."

"I'll accompany you in my suit," Walker said.

"Not a chance," said Quatre. It might have seemed strange to an outsider, but he felt an overwhelming urge to protect Walker's life, despite—and perhaps because of—their nearly killing one another less than an hour before. "You'd hardly last two minutes in one of those antiquated Leos."

The other smiled. "Who said anything about a Leo? I'll be flying out ahead of you, in my Aries."

"I'll remain here where you can keep me abreast of the latest developments," Relena said to her captain.

And minutes later, it seemed, they were back on the road, the trucks carrying their mobile suits speeding from the old Alliance base toward Sanq's eastern borders.

True to his word, Walker flew overhead in his Aries, surveying the land ahead of them for sign of the Order's troops. It was one of the few things he had kept from his life as a Special, he explained to Quatre's curiosity—albeit against Relena's best wishes. Its body was green like the hills of this country, not the black that had become the Order's airborne troops' trademark since the fall of the Alliance.

And it was a necessity, he said in his own defense, in such volatile times as these when even a country that practiced total pacifism was not immune from outside attack.

"They've set up a roadblock up ahead," he radioed back to Quatre and his companions. "Complete with Tragos—they came prepared. There's an alternate route up ahead that runs north into open country. If you correct your course now, you could still slip under their radar undetected, but it would be a long shot."

Even before those last words, Quatre had made up his mind. "In that case, we're going through. That is, if everyone is up for it—"

"Do you even need to ask?" Abdul's voice cut through before he could finish.

"After Medina, we need to show them the Maguanacs don't run with their tails between their legs," Auda joined in. "That and it seems like the Order needs to be taught a lesson in diplomacy. We're going through."

Quatre smiled to himself hearing the determination in his comrades' words.

"Mr Walker, we appreciate the escort, but—"

"Say no more. I'm right there with you."

"All right," Quatre told them all, "but we ought to spare the enemy pilots wherever we can. Merely disable their suits if you can, without getting yourself killed in the process. We might be fighting for our own freedom in his battle, but Sanq can't afford the message it will send if OZ takes too many casualties. We're not in Arabia any more. We have to show them we're not monsters. We only want to live in peace."

Walker refrained from voicing the comment on the tip of his tongue, but he admired Sandrock's pilot more than he could say for making such a decision. With their six suits and his Aries against a legion of OZ's finest, that particular order was a very tall one to fill.

The transports pulled to the side of the road, and Quatre and his companions climbed inside of their respective suits, hurriedly bringing them to life. The few civilians who remained in the area, sticking their heads out of their vehicles to stare, puzzled, at the Order's troops on the road, cried out in alarm to see these rebel mobile suits rising in their midst, and among them a gundam. Walker warned them to evacuate, but they were just another factor that weighed heavily on Quatre's mind, that they might be risking more than their own lives with this endeavor. To add one more worry to that load, he only remembered as he climbed inside Sandrock's cockpit that he had not yet had time to repair the damage done by the blue gundam more than a week before.

As he and the Maguanacs marched toward the Order's mobile suits, Leos and grounded Aries raised chain rifles in their direction; Tragos, beam rifles. "Stop where you are and come out of your suits," the commanding officer hailed them.

Walker shot right back: "You have not been authorized to bring mobile suits into this sovereign nation. By order of Princess Relena Peacecraft, you are to turn around and leave in peace, and we will forget about this infraction on the treaty of one-nine-five—"

"Our orders are to apprehend the gundam Sandrock. We will not leave until that has been accomplished. Nor will we hesitate to destroy the rest of you if you resist arrest." The OZ officer said slightly softer to Walker, "Do not stand in our way, sir. Our quarrel is not with Sanq."

"Like hell, it isn't," Walker said under his breath. At least, not yet. However, he could not delude himself into believing the Order would behave any differently toward the country he now served, whether he backed down or not. He had been a proud part of that organization once; he knew its motives well.

"Quatre," he said to Sandrock's pilot alone, "leave the Leos and Aries to the rest of us. Concentrate on—"

"The Tragos. I know," the young man filled in for him. Just like in the Hiddekel, he thought to himself, where that man and I first met, even if I was not aware of it.

He increased his speed, easing Sandrock into as swift a run as he dared; and when the OZ pilots saw he showed no intention of stopping, they predictably opened fire. Bullets ricocheted all but harmlessly off Sandrock's gundanium plating, but the Tragos' beam rifles were another matter. Each impact felt to Quatre like it were singing his own flesh. Still he persisted, drawing his shotels as he came within range of the enemy suits.

The Leos standing in the way of his goal fell in a few slashes, their limbs severed or dangling from their sockets, frayed wires and beam cartridges sparking to flame, but the explosions were controlled. The massive claws of Auda's suit punched through face plates and shattered circuitry, and Abdul's shoulders shielded him from the brunt of the blasts as he moved in close for his nonlethal kills.

It was all Quatre could do to make sure his comrades did not get taken out by a Tragos while they wrestled with the Leos, but it seemed that the bombardment suits were more interested in him—that was, in doing whatever was in their power to stop the gundam he piloted. But it was the landscape that suffered when their shots went wide, and their solid bodies made them sluggish as they tried to back away from his faster, more agile gundam.

"Blue Team, Blue Team," the Order's commander hailed his troops, "fall in and engage the target. Concentrate on that gundam. We need to take him down at all costs!"

Almost as soon as he had spoken, the air was split by the crack and roar of black Aries overhead. Their first pass made Quatre crouch beneath the impact of their missiles, but it was the Tragos with which he was engaged that suffered the brunt of its fellow's attack. The young man gritted his teeth. Ground troops he could handle—Sandrock excelled in hand-to-hand combat—but with these suits he was like a cat leaping at flies: it took too much of his valuable energy, for too little reward. "Mr Walker, I could use your help."

"I'm on it," came the swift reply, even as the green Aries could be seen diving into their numbers.

"Don't write us off, either," said Rigel, aiming another volley at an OZ Aries coming in for the shot.

"Thanks." Walker sounded breathless from the effort of the dogfight. "Just watch which Aries you're aiming at."

Despite their best efforts, however, the going only got tougher. There were not a lot of OZ suits, nothing like Quatre had faced in full battle, but there were enough for him and his comrades to be overwhelmed by three-to-one odds—or worse in Walker's case. One suit after another fell to Quatre's shotels, but it seemed the end of them was still out of sight, and he did not know how much more of the Aries troops' barrage his suit could take, to say nothing of his fellows. Their gallant plan to spare OZ's pilots was beginning to feel more like a self-imposed death sentence, as a few of the Maguanacs left their suits' hands lying in the trampled brush; others had been forced to throw away their now useless weapons, or use them as bludgeoning tools.

Had they made the right decision after all, Quatre wondered, or damned Sanq to invasion and their own cause to extinction with their actions? Perhaps surrender would have been a better path, if only because it would have meant Sandrock would survive, if only in captivity.

It was just as that sinking thought was running through Quatre's mind that he turned to see an Aries touchdown out of the corner of his eye, out of the range of his shotels and its rifle aimed right at Sandrock. Before he could calculate his next move or dodge its fire, it shuttered from the impact of a rival beam, and burst into flame.

In the glow, Quatre caught the glint of a uraeus-plumed helm. "Rashid!"

"Quatre," came his captain's gruff voice, tinted with a somber amusement. "I put you in charge of a team, and you lead them straight into battle?"

Quatre shrugged off his shame as he recognized more familiar MS among the trees, glowing with the colors of the desert. "How many are with you?"

"All teams but one. They're coming to join us, but it will be another day at least before they reach Cydonia. But it looks like _we_ arrived just in time."

"That you did." Quatre finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. "We're trying to spare as many of their pilots as we can, for the Sanq Kingdom's sake."

"And the green Aries is a friend, Captain," Abdul added.

Quatre never saw the Order's MS as particularly expressive, but it almost did seem as though the suits themselves were thrown into a panic by this sudden reversal of odds. They seemed to twitch their surprise before turning to engage the new enemy.

Then, from behind the mobile suits that sat smoking to their south, Quatre spotted it again: the blue gundam. At first it seemed like a mirage, its outline wavering in the heat; but there was no mistaking its larger frame, its streamlined build—and its massive array of artillery. Quatre's heart beat faster at the recognition, but he could not be sure if it was in excitement or apprehension.

"Mr Walker," he heralded the Aries pilot over his radio, "we've got another gundam on this battlefield, pilot and affiliation unidentified." He relayed to Walker the suit's location.

Although it hardly seemed necessary. "I see him," Walker was saying even before he finished. "So, that one's back, is he?"

"Do not engage him!" Quatre said quickly. Already more than a week had passed since the blue gundam had been responsible for the death of one of his own teammates, but now, belatedly, he felt all his outrage at that tragedy hit. It warred within him with the desire that was only natural to join forces with another suit that was like his own. However, "He's too dangerous at this point. We don't know where he stands."

"Surely he's not with the Order."

"I don't think so, but that suit's much too much to handle with just an Aries—"

"Holy shi—" Walker caught himself, and his suit, as the blue gundam shot a pair of missiles into the air his way. Thankfully he prided himself on his quick reflexes and was able to dodge in time, returning fire with his Aries's chain rifle.

His shots were right on the mark, but the gundam hardly flinched as the bullets bounced off its heavily armored hide. Walker chose that moment to get clear of the gundam's line of fire, before it recovered to fire at him again.

And Quatre saw that as his opportunity to close the distance between that suit and his own. Rather than risk the lives of more of his comrades, he chose to risk his own. His suit alone could stand up to the power of that one, and his alone had the power to take it out—if the pilot had in fact aligned himself with the Order. Even if he had not, he still posed a threat, one which Quatre could not trust anyone else to deal with.

The blue gundam saw him coming and swung the gun mounted in his right hand to bear. He fired round after steady round in Quatre's direction, and a charging Sandrock could not very well dodge them all. The heavy, mobile suit bullets pushed him back with each impact, and Quatre could feel a few penetrate those patches of his gundanium shell still weakened from his last bout with the blue gundam. But Sandrock did not complain; it held together, as though moved forward by a determination to match that which Quatre felt. Better that pilot is firing at me, he told himself, while the ionic edges of his shotels charged to their full capacity. When he was within range, he swung with them—up with the right, then the left—forcing the gundam to backstep in order to maintain its balance. But the blades, better prepared than last time, still made little more than a scratch on the blue gundam's surface.

Unable to get a shot off at such close range—or launch a missile without risking damage to his own suit—the pilot of the blue gundam attacked back in kind, gripping his massive guns in both hands and swinging them hard. The impact rocked Quatre in his cockpit, the harness pressing into the same fresh bruises he had gained just a short time ago in his duel with Walker.

He grimaced in pain, his hands threatening to slip from the controls; but he shouldered through it, not a moment to spare on self-pity, and corrected his balance immediately.

However, one more strike to the blue gundam's shoulder and one of his shotels, its structural integrity no doubt compromised in their last fight, shattered halfway down its length. Quatre cursed through his teeth, but struck on the opportunity it provided him. Too close for guns or longswords, the broken shotel with its razor sharp edge was the perfect size for jamming into the blue gundam's left shoulder joint.

It sank in with a hiss of pressurized air and fried wires, and Quatre almost let slip a cry of victory.

It would have been short-lived, however, as the blue gundam dropped its useless gun and flipped the MS-sized bowie knife from its sheath inside the right forearm. With its point aiming straight at Sandrock's cockpit door, Quatre had no choice but to release his hold on the busted shotel and shield himself; and the screech of the blade against Sandrock's arms rang painfully in his ears even behind the cockpit hatch.

At last he managed to grab hold of the blue gundam's right arm and stop the blade's descent. With one hand he slowly bent its hinge back, and in response the blue gundam turned on Sandrock with its own empty fist. Joints groaned with the strain of two gundams' strength, both with pilots behind them who refused to let up. Quatre caught the other gundam's fist in Sandrock's palm; the blue gundam was straining its damaged arm to dangerous capacity trying to shake off Sandrock's other hand. Neither suit would give an inch.

This is mad, was the thought that struck Quatre with such force it was like a physical blow to his gut. We shouldn't be fighting each other. Our power is equally matched. Neither of us is a friend of OZ—

And I don't want to see that suit's pilot get himself killed.

"You and I shouldn't be fighting." The words rushed from Quatre's lips as he opened a channel to the blue gundam. He didn't think, didn't waste precious time on caution or pleasantries. "I want to call a truce between us."

There was no response. And Quatre wondered, as he held his breath, whether he should have expected one.

He locked Sandrock's foot behind that of the other's gundam. He would make that suit's pilot speak to him, he determined, even if he had to put his life on the line in the process.

"Neither of us is going anywhere fast," he tried again. "I'll say it again: at this point, I don't wish you any harm. I think you and I have something in common, and because of that I don't wish to fight you. I certainly don't want you to be destroyed." He hoped his words might be taken not only as a warning to the blue gundam's pilot, but also as a plea of patience to his comrades, who would have leaped at the first opportunity to take the other gundam out if it were up to them. "Is there any chance there can be a peace between us?"

"If I agree to a stalemate, will you let me go?"

Quatre's heart skipped a beat in gratitude just to hear the other's voice again—just to hear any human voice behind the blue gundam's plates. "Yes," he said automatically. Anything just to know who in God's name you are. "I'm opening my hatch."

His radio was a buzz with the Maguanacs' pleas against it, but Quatre paid them no heed as he unbuckled his harness. He needed to do this. That knowledge kept him calm and confident as he stepped out onto Sandrock's hatch, and found himself a stone's throw away from the mighty chest plates that concealed an armory of missiles. He stared down that suit fearlessly for what seemed like forever until, almost against hope, the blue gundam's cockpit hatch also opened.

The pilot inside climbed out to face him, his empty hands raised momentarily to show Quatre he held no gun. It only made Sandrock's pilot that much more aware of the pistol that rested at his hip, but he dared not reach for it, even to comfort himself, knowing he would be looking down the muzzle of the other's sidearm as soon as he could make a move to do so.

"I'm Quatre," he said instinctively across the space that separated them, feeling a smile spread on his lips, "pilot of Sandrock. I'm fighting OZ for the freedom of the Arab States. What about you?"

The blue gundam's pilot did not answer right away. Indeed, Quatre felt incredibly self-conscious under the other's scrutinizing gaze. His expression was as readable as a Leo's, his thin yet adolescent face half hidden behind a veil of brown hair; but there was something in his olive green eyes at once clear and penetrating, like a beacon shining through the darkness of night, yet without the same glimmer of hope. In his old Alliance trousers, the jacket of one of the many mercenary groups that had ceased to be after the Order's so-called liberation of the world-sphere, a threadbare scarf wrapped loosely around his neck—Quatre was not sure what to make of this young man who seemed nothing like any part of the amalgamation his outward appearance claimed. Something was missing, something which he preferred to conceal deep down behind his veneer of silence.

"Well," Quatre persisted in absence of an answer, "at least tell me what I should call you."

The blue gundam's pilot was silent in thought for another long moment, and Quatre wondered if he was to get an answer at all.

Then, "Heavyarms. If you have to call me anything."

"That's the name of that gundam? But what's _your_ name?"

"I don't have one."

"Nonsense. Everyone has a name," Quatre began to say, but he cut himself off before he could finish. Something in the other's manner warned not to press the issue. "If you're fighting against OZ as well, perhaps we could join—"

"I prefer to work alone," Heavyarms's pilot told him quickly, a sharp edge to his words. "And I warn you not to get in my way again. I said before I don't usually allow those who have seen me to live, especially those who have seen my face."

Those words irritated Quatre, as though mocking his overtures of peace; and yet he could not help feeling a strange attraction toward the other—a young man certainly not much older than himself, like himself in so many ways, and yet different, more aware of the precariousness of his existence, like a lone cougar cornered by their pack of wolves.

"You said you would let me go," Heavyarms's pilot prompted.

"And I'll keep my word. But if we're on the same side, why would it be so difficult—"

"Don't get in my way again," the other warned him, retreating back into his cockpit. "Unless you have a death wish. I can't guarantee I'll be this forgiving next time."

Quatre climbed back into his own suit and released the blue gundam. The pilot's unblinking eyes seemed to see straight through Sandrock's cockpit door, until he was satisfied and closed his own hatch, picked up his weapons where he had dropped them, and—with a blast of Vernier engines that made the surrounding foliage sway violently— disappeared.

At least this time Quatre had something to call him, even if it was not a proper name. Heavyarms. It was a name that had not yet become infamous like Sandrock's had; perhaps, like Sandrock, in time the pilot would bear that as his own name as well.

"Quatre! Quatre, what happened? Are you all right?"

He shook himself when he finally recognized Auda's voice coming through his radio. "Yeah," he said belatedly. "I'm fine."

The fighting was over, the Order's suits either incapacitated or held at gunpoint by the rest of the Maguanacs. The Specials who had already emerged from their suits were being rounded up by the first Sanq officers to arrive; and it did seem to Quatre like just another part of the surrealism of the scene, that it would be OZ officers with their hands in the air rather than his own comrades.

But we are in Cydonia, he had to remind himself—hard to believe though it was that he had only just arrived in that country the day before.

"What happened?" Auda asked him. "What did that pilot say to you?"

"Never mind that," Walker said, sparing Quatre from having to answer. "I'm sure he'll bring us all up to speed later. Quatre," he said pointedly to the boy. "These are the rest of your friends?"

Quatre smiled at that, thinking of how Rashid would respond to hearing Walker refer to them in that way, as though the young gundam pilot were in command of all of them. "They are. Almost all the Maguanac troops who escaped with us from Medina."

He was not sure what to expect of Walker, but it was not what the ex-Special said next.

"And does your offer still stand, of you and your Maguanacs fighting for the Sanq Kingdom? Now that the Order has shown it has no qualms about sending its mobile suits into our nation's territory to root out the likes of yourselves, who can say what they will do next. Would you leave our country defenseless against a second attack?"

When Quatre did not respond right away, he added, "That is, now that the Arab territories have become too dangerous for you—"

"Does this mean you accept my offer?"

"On Princess Relena's behalf."

That Quatre would take. He did not yet know how the rest of his comrades would respond, but he knew as well as they did that they could not afford to refuse the safe harbor they had been searching for when it was offered them. They had come all this way to find it, and more than proved their mettle on the once peaceful hills of Cydonia. The complications of accepting such an offer could be ironed out in time, the repercussions dealt with when they arose.

In good conscience, however, he could not leave the Sanq Kingdom open to another attack—on his account or despite it. If nothing else, it was out of duty that he had no choice but to accept—a duty he was only beginning to understand the full depth of as the one and only pilot thus far capable of manning the gundam Sandrock. Fate or circumstance had driven him from his home in Arabia so that, until his return, he might protect this nation and the dream of peace for which it stood like a lone watchfire in the darkness of this oppressed world.

—= o =—


End file.
